intuitive japanese

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: intuitive japanese 🗣️ 

one thing i’ve noticed while in japan is the standardized interactions staff have with customers. after only a few café and convenience store visits, i’m now able to intuitively respond to a cashier or waiter without actually understanding a word.

“hello! do you have a loyalty card? do you need a bag? ___ yen is your total. thank you!”

anything that strays from this script, i can get by with a few words i recognize and body language / tone. from what i’ve observed so far, japanese people are extremely expressive. 👋 i could be wrong because they might just become more expressive when they see me and guess i don’t know japanese LOL. whatever it is, it’s very helpful and has already led me to picking up a little bit of the language.

basic phrases like “where is ___?” or “do you have ____?” come to me easily now alongside simple greetings. i hate to say it, but my grade 9 anime phase probably helps a bit too.

today i was on a mission to get some over the counter dry skin cream, and i knew it was going to take me forever if i tried translating each of the aisle signs to find the correct area, and then further scouring through the endless products on the shelves for what i was looking for. i had to communicate with a staff member. 😟 a search on reddit and google translate quickly got me the name of what i was looking for, and i relayed the question back to the kind woman working at the front in japanese .

she jumped into action immediately and led me to a row of skincare products. i wanted something more medicinal, rather than a skincare serum or cream though. so, i pointed to my under-eyes to try and communicate that i needed a body-part specific remedy. she kept firing back questions to me in japanese, and i honestly had no idea what she was saying. i kept nodding my head and saying yes to things that surely … sounded correct.

another coworker was called over and we finally got to a section that looked like what i was searching for. success! 😎 

i stayed in a very non-touristy area in osaka so there wasn’t a lot of english. i actually really appreciated this because it was a forcing function for me to learn the basics both in the language and general mannerisms. you could say i’m intuitively proficient, a step below the beginner level LOL.

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