So I just got orders to Okinawa to be there in September. I originally was going to go earlier this year, but they canceled them then had me on hold. I was told that I wasn't going gonna be able to go so I stopped looking into it. Now they just released them and I was caught completely off guard. Can anyone help me with language and getting to know the area. I will be going alone. Any help is appreciated.
EDIT: Thank you everyone for the helpful information and resources! Much appreciated. Hopefully I will be able to meet someone there as well that can even further help me.
by Cold_Ear_6356
22 comments
Honestly you can get a lot of info from your sponsor once you get one. The main thing to help you with is to give you info on the unit, area, etc. As well as take you to get a phone and vehicle and help you get comfortable once you get there.
The other commenter got the military side for sure. Caring about learning the language is huge imo, but just realize it’s going to take a long time. Like years to get proficient, but there is never a better opportunity for you than right now when you can be immersed and hear japanese daily. It opens up a ton of opportunities and the locals appreciate it immensely when you can speak to them. I taught myself Japanese while moving to Okinawa and now speak Japanese daily with my wife and her family and have met a ton of people, also got tasked as a random deployment to fill a translator position.
To learn, start with hiragana and katakana. With some flashcards this should really only take you like 2-3 weeks to memorize. Doesn’t have to be perfect. Then check out the textbook Genki. It will get you basic grammar. Also download the flashcard app Anki and find a flashcard deck of 2k common words. Just Google “Anki Core 2k Japanese”. Once you have grammar and some vocab you get to have basic conversations (very basic) and if you do that a lot your progress will explode. Feel free to message me with any questions.
If your sponsor hasn’t contacted you within 30 days of your PCS, call the command and ask for their info. To your other part, go out and make friends; I made alot of Okinawan friends that I still talk to today (mostly met em at bars). Learn the language or at least enough to get by and don’t be the typical ugly American. I absolutely hated dealing with entitled POS Americans and their dependas. Literally had one spouse yell at a young Okinawan girl to speak English smh. In any case, explore and have a good time!
You aren’t going to learn Japanese before September. Memorize the hiragana and katakana charts – you can’t really do anything before that. Get on Anki and find some very simple sets, like N5 vocabulary sets. If you decide to go the Genki route, Tokini Andy on YouTube is great. r/learnjapanese is, unsurprisingly, a good resource.
In the same but different boat. Thought we’d be getting there around April next year, actually headed that way end of this year. I watch a few YouTube videos about Okinawa a day which is something that has helped me with other travel previously. Stoked to hear they have their own version of the Aloha shirt that passes for business casual/business dress in the summer. A little concerned about snakes, but I’ve had a snake heavy week here in the south so I’m pretty tuned in to snake issues right now. Excited about better hiking opportunities and mountains. I’ve been in the gooch of the gulf for a few years now and haven’t been outdoors as much as I’d like. All in all, I’m excited for the opportunity and look forward to sitting back and being a quiet, polite, and gracious observer.
If you wanna try to get an introduction to the language, I recommend the Mango mobile app, which has tons of target languages to choose from, and it’s free when you register with your public library card. I’ve used Mango for German, French, and Icelandic, and I like it a lot better than DuoLingo. It’s an introduction at best, though. I felt like I barely learned anything in 3 years, because Japanese is a hard language to learn.
As far as getting to know the area, I can tell you about Okinawa 12 years ago, but I’m sure a lot has changed since then. Just get in a car and go down any random road. Explore a little. You never know what you might find. But if you’re bored on Okinawa it’s your own fault.
Some of the major attractions I remember were the Chura-Umi aquarium in Nago, the Sunabe sea wall along the west side, American Village shopping and entertainment district (which was just south of Sunabe sea wall, but which I understand is now gone or at least unrecognizable), Forest Adventure (a zip line course up north) and the nearby Pizza In the Sky, the WW2 Japanese Navy underground HQ at Motobu, Shuri castle (which has since burned down AGAIN), and several stone castle ruins such as Kita Nakagusukujo.
My grandpa was a WW2 US Navy vet, and he came to visit. He sat on the castle wall up there, overlooking Nakagusuku Bay, which he remembered as “Buckner Bay” and told me what happened when his ship was at anchor in that bay. Then we went to the Peace Memorial and Chura-Umi aquarium up north, and then south to the Navy HQ at Motobu which is now a Battle of Okinawa museum. It was an amazing experience for him, and I learned a lot of history and heard a lot of his navy stories for the first time, just a few months before he passed.
Enjoy Okinawa! It’s an unforgettable place. Try the purple sweet potatoes, the cookies, the matcha ice cream, the shikuwasa (local citrus fruit) and local pineapple, Okinawa soba and the Awamori, and when Starbucks releases their Sakura (cherry blossom) tea latte in the spring, go get you some! That shit is good.
I’m in Okinawa now! Don’t worry, it’s not as scary as it seems. We’re having an amazing time.
All the websites are going to tell you about all the stuff you can’t get and need to bring with you, but don’t worry about any of that. You can get anything you need between the base stores, local stores, and Amazon (though shipping takes FOREVER).
I don’t know what on-base unaccompanied accommodations are like, but in general, housing is MUCH smaller than in the states. Our apartment here has 800sqf less than our last house in the states and I’m tripping over our stuff constantly. So if anything, I recommend bringing *less* stuff.
Feel free to PM me if you have more questions. Okinawa is awesome!
Hope you ain’t going to 7th Comm, for your own sake.
Try to learn some words in Ryukyaun, the native language. Different than Japanese, and goes a long ways to make people more interactive with you.
Reach out to your receiving unit and get a sponsor.
Welcome to the humidity!
The most important thing is getting the basic hiragana down as a priority. That is critical for understanding Japanese phonetics and surviving with the basics. It also helps with retaining words and sentences.
There are tons of low and no cost resources out there. Some recommendations:
-Affordable and decent quality [online lessons ](https://www.japonin.com/)
-Spotify has tons of Japanese podcasts available for beginning Japanese.
-Free android [app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fluencytool) for speaking practice and fluency training
Yo im going to Okinawa soon too y’all , I got a question I hope one of y’all can help me w . So I got orders to go to 3 12th littoral , my lady wants to come w me for a few months, yall recommend we marry and try and get on base housing ?or can she just fly over there and stay near base/ on base and we live w each other for those few months ?
Best place ever. All my buds that were stationed there miss it every day. Enjoy it 🙂
I’m just going to tell you what I did. Before heading to the island, I memorized some basic stuff like “hello”, “good morning”, “how much is this”, etc…. Then I bought a good Japanese/English dictionary. I chose to live off base and went to local bars/pubs/restaurants by myself with my trusty dictionary. I practiced speaking with local bar tencho’s and bartenders. Over time my Japanese improved to where I could converse. Nowadays it’s even easier since you can use Google translate on your phone. Just have fun while you’re there, there’s nothing to be nervous about. The folks there are really friendly and accepting. If you want to live near other Americans, you probably want to live in the Chathan area. I chose to live in Okinawa City for a more local feel. Specifically, I lived in Awase and absolutely loved it.
Gate 2 and Epica 😏
Tattoos are cheap asf, hence why I have two sleeves and a back piece in the works. Get your SOFA license asap.
Try learning a bit of Japanese it’s not required but it does go a long way. If you don’t have the patience to do that, google translate is your best friend. I’ve been here three years and I don’t know a lot of Japanese and am still able to interact with the locals just fine. You’ll be alright, just be observant and considerate and you’ll be fine. Also, learn to recycle ♻️ and don’t litter.
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Be sure to get plugged into a good church!
My two cents here… come here with an open mind. I watched a lot of anime before arriving and it not help at all. I got here and literally spent my first year drinking and chatting with the bar tenders and learning Japanese from them, mind you, Japanese doesn’t have male and female vocabulary but they have male and female vocabulary. Learning Japanese to speak is fairly easy, in my opinion, which is all you really need as you most likely won’t be reading that much Japanese, I could be wrong. Most Japanese/Okinawan do not know English, even though they have study some form of it, so always go into a conversation open minded. As for friends, male Japanese don’t really interact with English speakers, unless they are explored the world, meaning they left the island and visit and or lived in a different country, as for females, you have three types, the cold ones, the self taught English ones, and the one that study and are busy(make a strong first impression). Everything is broken English but fun! Learning to just speak will get you a lot of chances that would other wise not happen. Being able to converse means more than you being able to write hiragana and katakana, at least from my experience. I landed a job in a Japanese company, management, just by being able to speak and understand my colleagues and president and vice president of the company, so this is where my experience comes from.
You might like the responses here too…we may be stationed there soon so I asked about the neighborhoods