Japan travel
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Japan travel · Page 18
Japanese Bus Fares and Numbered Tickets: Seiriken, Fare Boards and Change
On a Japanese bus you either pay one flat fare, usually as you board, or take a numbered ticket called a seiriken at the back door and pay at the front when you leave, using the fare board to turn your number into a price.
12 min readJapanese Road and Traffic Signs: Shapes, Kanji and Words on the Road
Japanese road signs tell you their type by shape and colour before you read a word: upside-down triangles mean stop or slow, red rings forbid, blue discs permit or require, and the kanji inside follow a few patterns such as kinshi, prohibited.
12 min readJapanese Coin Parking: Lock Plates, Rate Signs and the Pay Machine
At a Japanese coin parking you park in a numbered bay, a lock plate called the rokku-ban rises under your car, and when you leave you type that bay number into the seisanki, pay, and wait for the plate to drop.
12 min readJapanese Expressway Tolls: ETC Lanes, Toll Gates, SA, PA, IC and JCT
At a Japanese toll gate, choose your lane by its board: purple ETC sen'yō needs an ETC card in the car, green ippan means stopping to take a ticket or pay, and the split ETC/ippan board takes both.
12 min readJapanese Train Ticket Machine: Fare Maps, Buttons and Child Fares
At a Japanese station ticket machine you buy a price, not a destination: find your stop on the fare map above, choose how many adults and children, press that fare on the screen, pay, and take the ticket and change.
12 min readJapanese Castle Parts: Tenshu, Ishigaki, Honmaru and the 12 Original Keeps
A Japanese castle is layers of defence from the outside in: moats (hori), stone walls (ishigaki), gates (mon) and walled enclosures (maru) around the honmaru, where the keep (tenshu) stands; only twelve keeps from the Edo period or earlier survive.
13 min readJapanese Subway Station Numbers and Line Colours: How to Read G09
A Japanese station number such as G09 is an address on one line: the letter and colour tell you which line you are on, the number tells you where along it, so you can count stops and find transfers without reading kanji.
12 min readJapanese Restaurant Seating Types: Zashiki, Counter and Koshitsu
Japanese restaurants offer counter seats, table seats, zashiki on tatami with shoes off, horigotatsu with a pit for your legs, private koshitsu and terraces; you ask with phrases such as tēburu-seki wa arimasu ka or koshitsu wa aite imasu ka.
12 min readHow to Read a Shinkansen Ticket: Train Service, Carriage and Seat Explained
On a Japanese reserved-seat ticket, first find the date and route, then the train name and number, then the departure time, car and seat. In 8号車12番A席, 8 is the car, 12 is the seat row and A is the seat letter. Your platform number comes from the station departure board, not from 8号車.
9 min readJapanese Restaurant Waiting Lists: Names, Numbers and Your Turn
At a Japanese restaurant, a line of people may not be the whole queue. Look for a sign-in sheet or reception terminal. お名前 asks for your name, 人数 for the number of people, and 受付番号 is your queue number. Three groups waiting, 3組待ち, does not mean three people or a guaranteed three-minute wait.
10 min readJapanese at a Cooking Class: Booking, Allergies and Following the Instructor
A Japanese cooking class runs on a small set of instructor verbs and a few polite questions from you: kitte, mazete and itamete tell you what to do, dore kurai asks how much, and ajimi shite mite kudasai invites you to taste.
13 min readJapanese at a Japanese Garden and Castle: Tickets, Signs and the Tea House
At a Japanese castle or garden you buy a nyūjōken at the gate, follow signs for the tenshu or the main pond, and a handful of words such as honmaru, ishigaki and karesansui unlock nearly every explanation board and guide's sentence.
13 min readPractical guides
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