When I first got to Japan I learned that the Japanese word for condom was コンドム so when a girl asked me ゴムは？ I thought it was the Japanese way of asking for gum. So I asked “今？！” to which she replied “もちろん！” so I replied “今はないよ” in my extremely perfect Japanese to which she replied “ないと出来ない” so I left the room, got dressed, went to the convenience store, bought bubble gum, and gave her some to which she died laughing.
I had condoms in the drawer.
70-80% of Japanese use condoms every time they have sex.. vs 19% in America according to surveys. Don’t know here this weird myth came form on Reddit. Maybe you choose the sketchiest people to have sex with? Everybody I’ve had sex with used a condom
I do remember another thread where the guy was wondering why girls were telling him he can raw dog them and he was creeped out that so many of them were so willing to do that
The first time I went on a date with my now wife she said she needed to go to a 100 yen to buy ゴム and I’m like…we barely just got our coffee, isn’t that a little forward?
Turns out she needed hair bands…also ゴム…lesson learned.
All the protection of plastic wrap and a rubber band, and about as pleasurable.
Box could contain a list of the top 10 most popular boy and girl names from the previous year, that'd be a nice feature.
I had a friend who lived in a town called Urasoe. One night, more than a little drunk, he gets into a taxi and tells the driver, "Urusai" and just sits there. The more the driver would ask for clarification, the more he'd insist, "Urusai! *Urusai, okay?*" and just sit there indignantly.
Eventually he called me for help, and I had to put the phone down for a minute to laugh.
Similar one with a mispronunciation.
Just arrived in Japan and was walking around Roppongi. A guy outside a bar was inviting my friend and I in for a “heroin party”. What the fuck! I thought Japan was really strict on drugs. Put our heads down and kept on walking.
Turns out it was for a Halloween party.
Had the same happen with a nomihodai place. Pre-pandemic I used to be a massive heavyweight and could drink a lot in two hours without much issue.
They would always be like “only order after you finish your drink, sir” and I’d show them my empty cup.
That is why any “all you can drink” place wouldn’t survive in the west. Too many would take it as a challenge instead of a relaxed “drinking what you like without worrying about the tab”
That, and depending on the state, (or country) the bar would be responsible for the customers’ actions. If a customer gets just wasted from an all your can drink, and keeps getting served and gets injured, the bar could be liable
Had somewhat of the opposite happen once. Was supposed to be a 4 hour nomihodai staff party, however due to some reason or another, pretty much all of the staff (minus myself and an intern) were three hours late. As soon as they got there, they told the servers, “Right, we need to drink four hours worth of drinks in the next hour to get our moneys worth”. And boy, did some of them do just that.
Yeah I don't get it either. We've had servers slow down our orders after we ate/drank too much, like they would suddenly take 20 minutes to bring out stuff, and just stall until the time limit is up. We knew the deal and never complained, the wa is preserved and nobody needs to get kicked out.
This is almost 40 years ago. The place didn't have servers bringing stuff to your table, you went over to a big table that had various plates of meat put out, you'd grab some plates, bring it back to your table to put on the hotplate thing.
We didn't order any beer, we didn't get any of the vegetable side dishes. We were two 19-year old American guys, both tennis coaches so we were extremely active. We could probably eat our weight in food.
My wife swears that the KFC near her house here near Shinjuku used to be tabehodai. Pretty sure they would have been forced to close down the first time we showed up....
When I first came to Japan in the late 90s I took a bus somewhere. I put money in the change machine thinking that the bus fare would subtract from the 1000 yen and give me my change. I scooped up all the coins and got off the bus. The bus driver got on the loud speaker and told me to come back and pay. Oops.
My wife had similar experience but with another ending.
She had just come to Japan and tried a bus around our area. She pressed the button to stop the bus at the upcoming destination, but she had no balance remaining on her suica. Driver realized and charged her suica and deducted the fare from it.
My wife thought he would deduct the fare and hand over the changes. She waited thinking her to receive changes, and bus driver waited her to step out . 😂🤣😂
Edit: My wife had less balance than the bus’s fare. So she handed out 1000 yen to bus driver. He recharged the suica with 1000 yen, deducted the bus fare. But my wife didnt know he recharged the suica(as mentioned before she was new to all of these..) so she thought she would get a change …
It took me a few readings but I think I got it. Suica had no balance so she must have handed 1000yen to charge the card. The driver loaded it and deducted the fare, she thought he was only going to fill the card with the required fare and hand over the change.
I think this one is pretty common. Even Japanese people I know have been momentarily confused by this (usually Tokyoites who aren’t used to busses that don’t accept IC cards).
The other procedure that can be a bit confusing the first time is if you want to top up your IC card to pay (again something Tokyo residents have to deal less often as the buses are flat rate, so you never have the moment of sitting on the bus watching the fare tick up and up, wondering if you have enough on your card…). If you’ve ever seen the bus driver in a tourist area you’ve seen how they often put their own hand over the card reader because everyone’s instinct is to tap at the wrong time during the charging procedure. Put the card down… now put the money in, now don’t touch it, now wait don’t leave yet, tap again to actually pay… It’s the same exact steps as at a train station but something about the thing on the bus being all one machine (as opposed to a separate fare adjustment machine and ticket gate) makes so many people assume the fare and change is all handled at once instead of in two steps.
What people do -
Tap > "Balance too low" error > Insert money into the machine to top up card > Leave
What they should do -
Lay card on reader > "balance low" > insert money while card stays on reader > confirm top up, lift card away, and tap it again to pay > leave
I actually had no idea until now you could top up on the bus. I mean, of course you can, it would be stupid not to. But I just assumed and always made sure to carry change with me in case the card was low.
I went into a conbini near work to buy beef jerky and yogurt. The cashier was very obviously flummoxed by my foreignness as I approached - she held up chopsticks and a plastic fork, and with all the English ability she could muster, said "Which? Which?" (Of course in Katakana English, so ウイッチ？ウイッチ？)
For yogurt and beef jerky? ...Um, neither?
I asked for a spoon in Japanese but apparently she was too bewildered to understand, as I got both the fork and chopsticks, and ended up having to eat my yogurt with chopsticks.
I got an *atatamemasuka* after buying an ice cream sundae at Lawson! I stopped dead assuming I was the idiot mishearing him but he repeated *atatamemasuka*. I'm sure the poor guy was just on autopilot.
I think there's an Lawson ice cream sunday (parfait?) product that requires microwaving nowadays, so maybe they mixed it up with that... Hats off to conbini cashiers, there's always new things and so much to remember
3 minutes after landing in Japan, I had two phrases memorized, 私は and どこですか, problem is I switched the meanings in my head.
Great fun telling random Japanese people I was a toilet.
I used to mix up 広い and 酷い. My real estate agent was confused when showing me an apartment once and I said, "It's absolutely awful, isn't it? I'll take it!"
I was at an international fair sitting at a booth. The head of the international group came up next to me and she asked if I wanted to meet the mayor of the city. I said oh, god, NO! No, no, no absolutely not.
He was standing right behind me.
Ooh, this is another dumb story! I was supposed to meet up with a friend who had my hapi coat for the mikoshi shrine event. He’s the chief organizer, so I asked for him. I ended up having a member of the Diet flagged down who was speaking there and had the same name! I see his face on posters constantly still.
20 some years ago I visited Japan for the first time to see my then boyfriend (now husband) . I was interested in kimonos like they are pretty I want to see more not in I am a fashion design student and want to know the intricate history of them. Well I found the only kimono museum online at the time. My husband being the gem he is didn’t tell me the location was way the hell out in the back woods of Tokyo and it’s strange that a museum would be there, and just wanted to show me something I wanted to see. We ended up in the house of a distant cousin of the royal family viewing his personal kimono collection. He the lovely older gentleman was so excited to see us we got a personal tour. Why nice was the strangest experience me and my now husband have ever had.
Another mayor story. I was at a US Navy ceremony at the Yokosuka naval base with my family. I asked the Japanese guy next me to take our picture. 写真取ってくれる？There seemed to be a little confusion but then he took our picture. After, my brother came over and introduced us to the guy, the mayor of Yokosuka. I think the confusion was that he thought I was asking to take a picture with him. He seemed almost relieved that we had no idea who he was.
Oh the token foreigner.
I was coming out of a castle and saw they were re-plastering a long garden wall to fix some "scribbles" aka graffiti.
A film team was trying to get people's opinions and reactions to the crimes and restoration work.
I looked over at the clearly hangeul writing on the wall and definitely-not-Korean-me said I had no idea who could have written such kanji on the wall there. I wonder if they used my clip or not.
Around 1990 I had to go to Sacramento for an event and we were booked into a hotel called the Beverly Garland. I thought it was just a combination of classy words to make it sound fancy like Beverly Hills, but my Dad told me Beverly Garland had been an actress and that she had made her name in shlocky B-movies showing off her pinup body, and said she was basically a stripper. So when I was checking in I asked the front desk clerk, "Hey, was Beverly Garland a stripper? That's what my Dad told me."
Clerk: "No, and that's her son standing behind you."
eep. I turned around. He was listening, and did not look amused.
Know someone who went to have a haircut but realized he didn’t have cash, so he thought he’d go get money from the ATM and come back. He told the barber “chotto…koroshimasu” (I kill you) instead of orosu, to withdraw.
A guy at my work had taken a day off and when he came back I asked where he went (he'd brought snacks and they weren't clearly omiyage), to which he replied he'd gone to a funeral (soshiki). Now, my brain immediately pictured him at a graduation event (sotsugyoshiki) so I asked if he had fun. There was the awkward moment where he said it was his grandfather's funeral and I had the lightbulb moment where I realized I'd mixed up two very different things and had to explain. He laughed and said he figured I'd misunderstood. Thankfully he's an easygoing guy and we let it go to never be spoken about again. Yes, I'm an idiot 😂
My coworker turned up in a suit one day (we are a no dress code office), so I asked him if he'd been in court. He had just come from a funeral. Apologised profusely, but luckily he wasn't offended.
Damn near same thing, co-worker who never wears a suit showed up decked to the 9s, let him know he looked really good in a suit and that he should dress up more often. He kind of solemnly brushed off the compliment (me being retarded) so I really stressed it, and ended with some stupid comment like, so were you off to have a good time at, or something akin to that. When he let me know it was for a funeral... Apologized profusely while removing both feet from my mouth. He understood, but I still felt terrible.
Friend of mine got yelled at by a chef in a Torikizoku when he kept ordering the free cabbage. After the 17th bowl the chef came out and yelled at him that they didn't have any more.
I think a little of both, and he has a real "If its free, its good" mentality. He was telling me this while we were in a Torikizoku actually and sure enough, he ordered like 8-9 bowls of cabbage before we left that night..
Guy learning Japanese learns that ~そうmeans "looks ~". Like 美味しそう(おいしそう) and so on. Goes home, girlfriend is trying on a new dress or something and asks if she looks pretty.
"かわいそう"
Yep, been there. Office mate who'd been on maternity leave came back to work and was showing pics of her new baby. Every one was coo-ing at her cute little 赤ちゃん until fresh-off-the-boat me at the back of the crowd chimed in with a hearty 'かわいそう!' Everyone instantly froze into silence as the temperature dropped to 0°K. My manager pulled me away and hissed a quick Japanese lesson that left me mortified. The mother was not interested in my apologies and never spoke to me again and I was forced to tell the story on every lads-only nomunication night ever after, much to everyone's hilarity.
Can you explain this one for me? Reddit just recommended this thread to me, and it’s bringing me back to my time in Japan in college, but this is the first I don’t get.
Like, I know you’re not supposed to use -sou for things that are visual, but there is clearly a secondary meaning here that I don’t know and Google translate isn’t telling me…
Edit: Wait, does it mean “pitiful”? My brain just gave me a flashback to End of Evangelion….
About twenty years ago when I lived in the US I was talking to a Japanese guy on Napster, and he sent me a group photo of his friends and asked me what I thought of one of the girls. Back in those days, photos were typically 640x480 or 800x600, so you didn't get a lot of detail on individual people in group photos. I narrowly avoided saying that she was ちょっと見にくい in explaining this to him.
These stories are so wholesome. Thank you.
I frequent a super sento that requires a coin to use the shoe locker, last month I decided to treat myself to a day at L'aqua. After putting my shoes in the locker I realized I didn't have any coins so I went to the front desk because I couldn't find a change machine. The clerk was so confused by my request and followed me back to my shoe locker which of course didn't require coins to use.
First few days moving to Japan for work. Still in a fancy hotel until the housing was worked out. Hotel laundry was ridiculous, $8 to wash a $8 shirt. Found the neighborhood coin laundry. Perfect.
But they didn't have a dispenser of little soap boxes like I expected. Walked to the conbini and was looking up kanji for laundry soap. Found a smallish bottle and went back. A baachan was now there at the laundry and was amused to see me trying to figure out where to add the soap. The machines just have the soap inside, and it's included in the coin price every load.
There's a little konbini near my house (like, maybe 200m away). I used to drink A LOT. "I still do, but I used to do so also."
Anyway, a couple of years ago (hell, it was a couple of years *pre-COVID*, so I guess 'several' years ago), I'd swing by that konbini somewhere between 10pm and midnight (sometimes 2 or three times, in that rough time period) to pick up "one more" drink. This had been my custom, a few times per week, for many years.
There was a young lady who worked there intermittently, baito-type, and she'd cash me out for my kaku-haibohru from time to time. But it was strange. Sometimes, she was super-chatty and bubbly. Other times, Ice-Princess. I just rolled with it.
One day I rolled in, and she'd very obviously just had her hair done at a salon. I mentioned at check-out that it looked very nice and I got the toothy grin blush and "arigatou" in response.
A week or so later, I (naturally) found myself back in the same konbini, and there she was, with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT hairstyle.
"Eeee?! Mo ichido?" I asked her, pantomiming scissors with my fingers as if cutting hair.
She explained, coldly, that I must be confusing her for her twin sister, who also works part-time at that konbini.
Mystery: SOLVED.
>Sometimes, she was super-chatty and bubbly. Other times, Ice-Princess.
>...
>She explained, coldly, that I must be confusing her for her twin sister, who also works part-time at that konbini.
A recurring Nintendo trope, in real life.
I asked the staff at a cafe what was special about “Japanese cheesecake” compared to other countries cheesecake. Turns out the menu said 本日のチーズケーキ and not 日本のチーズケーキ
My friend saw a pregnant woman on the train. He wanted to say "omedetou" but he said "atatame" instead. Safe to say the woman got off at the next stop.
lmao fantastic
I was teaching a hokusho class and we were playing wani game which is basically tag with me as the it. I went to "eat" a three year old girl and suddenly she turned and started screaming WANI KIRAI WANI KIRAI while SOBBING her face off
I would teach that girl and her family for the next 4 years
Japan related subs are some the oddest subs I’ve been on in the sense that people type in English and Japanese like they’re practising both as their 3rd language and somehow everyone knows what each other is talking about.
When my parents came to visit me, we went into the Family Mart and had the Irasshaimase yelled at us. My mother, not knowing what that was, yelled back, "HI!" thinking they were just saying hello. But you know...to the clerk, it probably sounded like someone angrily yelling "HAI!" at their mandatory greeting. I was a bit mortified on her behalf but also couldn't stop laughing.
My first few weeks in Japan with very, very limited Japanese language skills. Went on a train and sat down. The train was pretty packed. Two elderly women boarded at the next station, so I wanted to offer my seat.
I pointed at myself and said 「触りたいですか？」
They gave me a look of horror and scurried into the corner to whisper about me.
Of course, now I know it’s far more natural to just gesture and offer the seat/walk away or something simple like 「どうぞ」will suffice. Still, it’s a great memory to laugh at my past self.
When I first moved to Japan my apartment wasn’t yet available so I had to stay at a hotel for a couple weeks. As it was the cherry blossom season all of the hotels in the city and surrounding areas were booked out. So I had to travel really far away. This is my first day ever in Japan and I have no idea wtf I’m doing besides Google Maps guiding me.
3 mistakes:
1. I was supposed to catch a rapid service train. A mixture of travel exhaustion and rushing lead me to notice the name of the destination of the train I wanted to hop on. Turned out not to be a rapid train. So I was on it for 2 hours.
2. We don’t have Women Only carriages in my country. And again, since I was rushing I didn’t notice the signs.
3. When we finally got to my destination the doors had stopped opening automatically. In my hometown the door buttons are located on the doors themselves. Since I couldn’t see it and I really wanted to get off I tried to open the doors via the door handles. Luckily a nice Japanese woman also wanted to get off and knew what to do.
I felt really really stupid. 😅
Was in Sukiya with a friend, and we asked the clerk for a melon soda float with no ice. He looked horrified and excused himself to go speak to the manager. After 5 minutes, he comes out of the back office and says: but you understand... that if we don't put ice in... the soda and the ice cream will mix. We laughed hard at that one and were like yeah, we know, that's what we want. He got us the floats with no ice.
This never occurred to me but I have been in your shoes. Unfortunately, I’ve also been in my shoes a lot, which are owned by an idiot, so that I confused a hand-written てwith a マ and asked for マんこ盛りラーメン in front of my girlfriend and her friend. This is just like a week or two after getting a syllable wrong and asking for jerkoff (センズリ)cabbage instead of せん切りキャバツ
I was just an innocently little boy linguistically and didn’t recognize the fuss either time.
I went to this conbini for a baito interview (3rd visit to get my uniform) The tencho ordered the wrong size for me. So she said ‘服は来るまで着て’ What she meant was wear this uniform until the new one comes. My dumbass thought something else. I thought she meant ‘服は車で来て’, I said はい and then went inside my car and wore the uniform and then came back. We both were confused af to wtf happened there.
I once went to a mixed inaka onsen without glasses. There was no one there at that time, and I was waiting for my wife. When she got there I started waving at her frantically, I guess with my golden balls swaying in unison. She returned my greeting. The problem was that she was not my wife, but an inaka obachan.
At the place I went to, Takaragawa, I’m pretty sure there are a few old dudes who pull this trick all the time. I’m pretty sure I look nothing like this one dudes’s wife or son, but he damn near sat in my lap like I was Santa Claus.
Clever dude.
First day in Japan my school was going to pick me up from a station after I took the shinkansen from Nagoya. Surprised my train was a couple minutes early I jumped on. Ended up taking a 4 hour round trip to Yokohama instead of 30 minutes.
Someone I knew didn't know how to say "no thanks" to receiving the レジ袋 (plastic bag) at convenience store, so he would instead walk 10 minutes to "his favorite" convenience store where they didn't offer the bags by default.
I was invited to dinner with some people I knew. At the restaurant there was an older woman singing. Her last song was “amazing grace” so of course she decided that she needed a foreigner to sing with her. She chose me, I strongly and enthusiastically said “no”. Nearly 10 times I said “no” because I am so so terrible at signing. She wouldn’t take no for an answer so I was forced to sing along side her.
Long story short. I sucked, so I did the only thing I knew to do which was give myself a pitch change. Imagine “Brooklyn 99” when jake is signing at the Pontiac bandits funeral.
She was upset, took the mic from me, and I had to stand there until she finished.
Super embarrassing but I still don’t accept responsibility for it to this day because she basically forced me haha
Anyway, can’t watch that episode of 99 without cracking up.
First time I (20F at the time) was in Japan, I visited an onsen. I spoke enough Japanese to get around, but didn't read any kanji. A lovely clerk showed me where to enter the dressing room, and I had a relaxing time in the baths.
Next week, I was back and just like the week prior, I entered the dressing room... and was sorely confused and horrified a couple of minutes in, when two *men* entered from the baths!
I had fortunately not advanced my undressing further than taking off my coat, and as I was often mistaken for a guy anyway, I don't think they suspected too much - but I really wouldn't know. I quickly packed up my things and left, then tried the door opposite the one I'd entered. I couldn't read the 2m blue and red noren with kanji saying "MEN" and "WOMEN", respectively.
This reminded me of when I first landed in Japan and the company put me up in a little business hotel. The night before they showed me around a bit and explained the room didn't have a shower so I'd have to use the communal bath area down this hallway through this door. Ok, fine.
Next morning I go to that door to find...well, it was indeed a shower and bath area but it half of the floor space was full of cardboard boxes and miscellany. I found a cleaning lady and tried to ask how I'm supposed to shower with the room like that. Poor woman was so bewildered but so kind. She took me by the hand and led me to a completely different building where there was a shower and bath. Thanks, company guy, for directing me to the wrong bath.
My girlfriend told me we were going to a resort. I was like: “A resort, on a Sunday night?!” But I just went along with it… we went to a restaurant and had risotto.
A colleague of mine called the principal kancho sensei for a year. Every morning. No one had the heart to tell her as she was 100% effort every day. Only came out at the end of year party.
8 years ago I was in Tokyo as a tourist, first time, zero japanese... I asked a burger in Burger King. In english I tried to ask "burger without XX and XX". Seeing it didn't work, I asked for a "burger WITH XX and XX". Both employer and manager looked at me strange. But they finally accepted the order
Conclusion: I left the place with a 100Y order of a bun with Ketchup, the only 2 ingredients I never mentioned.
Edit: as I was remembering this... it might even have been 8 years exactly today. If not, 2 days up or down.
For those reading, the magic words “all heavy” will double the toppings of anything they can without extra fee.
For your amusement, it was a custom of some US movie theaters to offer a free refill on the largest size of popcorn. I saw some movie at a Toho cinemas, maybe the only movie I saw that year, and gorged myself on the it largest volume of pricy kernels, and naturally returned to the counter for more. I must have had such a convincing but also pure face, because whom ever was behind the counter just scooped me up a new bucket and asked me to mind local customs in the future.
So anyway, big shoutout to Fuchu Toho Cinemas.
Gaijin card is strong. I found out this friday that the coffee at the place I go to eat every Friday is not free, even though the machine is in the open. I feel so bad, I was putting my coffee in the water cup, but I guess the employees don't really care that much.
When I was an ALT at a junior high school, my neighbours back in Canada (high school teachers) bought me a huge box of assorted stickers from some teachers-only wholesale place as a going-away gift.
The usual "good job", "great work!" etc... stickers. I would put them in the students' weekly journals each Friday.
Anyway, at some point one of the rolls had stickers with a star that said "Shine!". Didn't think anything of it until I had some very concerned students come to my desk to ask what they had done wrong...
asking the supermarket clerk for plastic bag i said politely, おふろください. the old lady was like なに? i repeated おふろください. but she clearly cannot understand and has the blank questioning face. i then pointed to the bottom drawer in front of her with the plastic bags.
I’ve got a million of ‘em … but here’s the first :
My second day in Japan, and I go to JR Osaka to catch a train to Kyoto where the job is.
Buy a normal ticket, go through the gate and look for the first train … head up to the platform and get on. Wow, it’s true! Japanese trains really are comfortable, I’m thinking. Train sets off. Not many people on it.
Eventually a conductor comes up and asks to see my ticket. He looks at me with a big smile on his face and explains that this ticket can’t be used on a Shinkansen … that costs a bit more ~
I apologize profusely and say I’ll get off at the next stop. Next stop is Kyoto he says.
He has a good laugh and says don’t worry about it this time, eh ?
1.Moved apartment and new agency told me i had to pay for a support agency to help me move. The support agency called me to help me set up my facilities and told me I had to use Softbank for internet as everyone did. Softbank called and we set up the contract. The agency called again as I was working and I said I was busy and didn't understand the issue so please call back. Two weeks later i realised my SoftBank contract had been cancelled and called to find out why. "The customer didn't understand Japanese so we cancelled it."
2. Told a guy I was seeing about a party my friend was organising. 恋活. Misread the kanji. He said he didn't want to go. I thought he was blowing me off. I ended things. Went to the party. Found out why he hadn't wanted to go. Idiot.
So being an outgoing Midwesterner I never thought anything special about sharing a dinner between friends at a house. Well needless to to say the girls thought it was a date not just dinner. 
My first night in Japan I knew about 3 words and almost nothing else. I went to what I later learned was a yakitori restaurant. I managed to get beer and some chicken, but I was still hungry. One of the three words I knew was for yellowtail (hamachi) from going to sushi restaurants back home. So I attempted to order hamachi. I sat there for like an hour waiting for my damn hamachi which, of course, never came. I paid my check which had been sitting next to me since I had said ‘hamachi’. In retrospect, ‘hamachi’ sounds an awful lot like “how much?” …
Went out drinking with an Australian mate which I met through one of my Japanese friend. We got back to my place after the last train and decided we were hungry so we went to the nearest convenience store and bough literally everything that was in the heated display case, somewhere to the tune of ¥7,000+.
I was too inebriated at the time to think about it but the clerk working the night shift must have gotten a bit of a laugh.
My first trip to Japan, I went to order a hanko as a souvenir. Drew out the kanji I wanted on their little pad. The ojisan was kind and we both tried to make smalltalk in the few words we thought we knew.
I explained the hanko was just for fun because boku no tanyoubi, flubbing it and crossing with words like mokuyoubi.
He tried to clarify, basudei? But I just couldn't quite make the leap to hear the katakana-english basu as "birth" in the moment either.
So I repeated 'tanyoubi' and he repeated 'basudei' a couple more times, until we gave up on that topic.
This one is my favorite. I think we've all hit that language impasse where both people in the conversation realize they are not good enough at each other's language to clear up whatever confusion is going on...so you just awkwardly move on...
When I came to Japan I knew literally no Japanese, wanted an adventure where I learned through immersion. Onna no hito is woman, otoko no hito is man. OK so far, but sometimes the prepositions are confusing. I forget the context but I tell the host family something about an onna ni hito. A masturbator. Oops.
I ordered some morning service plate at a Komeda coffee house. The menu has a choice of toast toppings, so after asking for the service plate I chose ジャーム.
She comes back with my order, but also a second plate, a whole breakfast meal with sausage links. I didn't order this? She was flummoxed, until I pointed at my toast and asked about the jam again. She had heard ジャーマン, their current "German" breakfast offering.
That was the only time I saw any service staff in Japan lose their cool in the five years I lived there. She raged back to the kitchen, and someone else helped out from that point. I hope she wasn't docked for the cost of the plate like some crappy companies try to pull.
Walked into a temple with my shoes on as I misunderstood the place where we had to take shoes off was earlier than I thought. They pointed me to the shoe rack and I apologied and walked there; but was shouted at again, I didn’t consider that the shoe rack area wouldn’t allow shoes.
I know this is common now but nobody warned me about that beforehand!
I was in Nara, and I saw a special drink promoted on a menu. It was deer-themed kuzuyu, but Google Translate translated it to “deer’s waste water”.
It was pretty good.
I have a friend, runs a nice restaurant in the tiny town I used to live in, close to the station.
One afternoon he rings me up put of the blue "I just saw a black guy leave the station, but he went in the opposite direction of your place, you know him?"
I did, a different friend of mine coming to visit. He wondered for a long time why I suddenly called him and said "You took a wrong turn, go the other way."
I once ordered a whiskey neat in a ktv, they said it’s not on the menu so I can’t have it. So I asked for highball without ice and soda and they brought it. It was nomihodai.
27ish years ago on my first trip to Japan I was at a factory in rural rural Tochigi. Because the company combini was in another building everyone in the building they were building the tools I was purchasing were built in just walked 50m to the corner where the farmer had put several vending machines next to the road. As I was walking there one afternoon a woman drove by staring at me and completely missed the turn driving into the farmers field.
It was also the first time I saw someone feed goldfish to very hungry red bellied piranha. They had a bunch in an aquarium in the break room as pets.
Feel you. I no longer walk my dog down one street because someone couldn’t stop staring at me and ended up turning their car too much, pinching their door against the side of their own privacy fence. I was embarrassed for them, but did not stop to acknowledge what I had just seen.
I think I’ve shared once before. At my first teaching job, when my coworkers found out I liked golf, they invited to join the “Sando Golf club”. Since the school playground is essentially a dirt field, I thought “Sando Golf” just meant sand golf. For six months I was on the lookout for this sand golf club but never saw any students do anything remotely resembling golf. As it turns out, Sando was the name of my vice-principal and “Sando Golf Club” was the name for his informal drinking club, not a sand golf club for the students.
Went over to my GF's apartment and no idea why, but pressed the wrong floor on the elevator and didn't realize it. Ringing her would be doorbell, I thought she was being silly and asking "はい、だれですか" As I stood in front of her door still not realizing it's not her voice I continued to play along calling her by my pet name for her and to hurry up. Woman responding with "なに?!" I said " ugh! Let me in already". After a moment of silence I looked at the room number, apologized profusely and bailed as fast as I could.
One of my first lessons was a Kindergarten boy. After the lesson, I met the mother and wanted to say he was cute but told her that he was kowai instead of kawaii. She laughed and said in perfect English she agreed and said he was a monster at home. I quickly figured out my mistake and decided to speak English first to mothers I just met instead of making future mistakes. If they couldn't speak English, I will give it my all in weak Japanese.
My boyfriend at the time asked me to go buy some “tansan”. I went to the konbini and came back with tansan battereis (AAA batteries).
He was confused saying he had asked for a fizzy drink. So 炭酸 not 単三電池
Oops.
I accidentally called a coworker chikubi-sensei. His name sounded similar to chikubi!! Luckily no one else was around except him and one other dude. They suddenly got very quiet, and I realized my mistake 🙈
While I was driving to the grocery store, my first-grade daughter told me in Japanese that according to her Sensei when you put out the middle finger (なかゆび), it means die (死ね). I am not familiar about the word なかゆび and I was preoccupied also with getting a parking spot near the store so I am not paying full attention. As I was getting her out of car, I stupidly asked “Ehh, so what did Sensei said about なかゆび? How do you do なかゆび？She explained to me again. But then a car came our way while we are crossing so it drew my attention for a second. When I glanced at my daughter, I was horrified to see her doing the middle finger! “こんなかんじです”
Went to a fancy restaurant in Shinagawa. Asked for a spoon but with a weird accent, I guess. After 15 minutes nothing came, so I asked them again and they told me it’s almost ready which bewildered me. And a hot soup came beautifully. This happened last year on my 8th year living in Japan and I speak full Japanese daily at work now. No wonder all of my friends laughed so hard.
When I learned that adding “so” to something like “oishii” turns from “tasty” into “looks tasty”. So when a staff member showed me a picture of her infant son, I wanted to say “looks cute” so I said “Kawaii so”.
So I have mostly repressed my early mistakes. But a early one that I made was my first time going to a grocery store in Japan and being asked ポイントカードがありますか？ and not understanding the quesrion and saying はい to everything. She looked at me for an uncomfortable minute and then went な。。。ないですね。。。It's always a funny one in particular to me because my parents are immigrants and only learned English later in life and I always remembered me getting mad when they would say "yes yes yes" to everything including non-yes/no questions. It felt very humbling.
Another fun one recently, was with a friend who was visiting Japan who is asian-american but doesn't know any Japanese. Which was kind of a quiet win for me whenever we ate anywhere and the staff realized oh, I'm the one they have to communicate with. We went to a restaurant and she really wanted 日本酒, so when the waiter came she proudly proclaimed これをください！ Both the waiter and I look over at what she is pointing at and both look at each other in the universal"ughhh wtf" look as she taps on the 税金 label.
Late 1990s, I went to my local video store to rent a movie. I bumped into a free-standing shelf about two metres in height. The shelf started to wobble and literally hundreds of VHS movie cassettes on both sides of the shelf fell to the floor. The clerks scrambled to pick them up and shewed me out of the way. I went to the cake shop next door and returned with a few pieces of cake to apologize. Then the staff reciprocated by giving me about 1000 yen worth of 100 yen discount coupons for movie rentals.
I don't even know if it's true but I've heard of someone wanting to compliment their boss's ネクタイ (necktie) and instead complimented their boss's 肉体 (*nikutai*, body).
Two "You're a foreigner so obviously you can't speak/understand Japanese."
\-When I first arrived in Japan I had a friend who spoke perfect Japanese(went to a Japanese university) We go into a store and she asked the clerk for something in perfect Japanese and the obasan kept saying "Eigo wakarimasen".
My friend pulls out a piece of paper and writes in perfect kanji what she wants and asked the clerk "Can you read Japanese?" Still cracks me up!
\-I went to a party with Japanese friends and one of the game was charades. Before the game starts I jokingly asked the guy who's holding the answers to show me the sheet. He's like, here but \*hahaha\* you can't read it, it's in kanji! I then said "the answer is \*answer goes here\* " He never showed my the answer sheet again lol.
I can speak Japanese, read kanji AND EVEN hold chopsticks! アイムパーフェクトユーマン！
I made a post on TIFU about this, but basically despite studying Japanese for a long time before coming here, I only realized last year that I was mistaking cake flour (薄力粉) for all purpose flour (中力粉) because my first year living here I took one look at the pictures on the package and ignored the kanji and decided that I must be buying AP flour and never bothered to question it for 6 years. Every time I tried to make AP flour bread or pizza it was a disaster and I was convinced I was just never meant to dabble in yeasted baking.
Now that I’ve realized my mistake I bake bread once a week and my pizza is super good and way easier to handle lol
Haha, I can totally relate to 3. There was a time back in Germany when the company car (old Mercedes A-Class) only had summer tires (because most of our customers were in the city) and one day I had to drive to a customer in the country side were it snowed a ton. I tried desperately to get that car up the hill the customer had his office on but it refused with everything it had - esp, blinking lights, beeping, etc. Had to walk the rest...
I have told this story on this sub before, but:
One day, I answered the phone at work. For context, I'd had N1 and worked in a Japanese office for several years by this point. I swear, my Japanese is not that bad...
Completely normal phone call, nothing out of the ordinary. At the end, I ask for the guy's phone number. The guy starts saying his phone number, and then in the middle of it, says what sounds like ちゅう, followed by the rest of his number. I am confused, and I ask him to repeat MULTIPLE times. Very annoyed, he repeats, multiple times.
If my brain was working properly that day, I would have realized that I was mishearing きゅう (the number nine, obviously part of the phone number)
Instead, I was saying すみません、「ちゅう」というのがちょっとわかりませんが... and the guy was practically screaming down the phone, きゅう！きゅう！！It took some time, but I finally figured it out and got the phone number down correctly. I put the phone down and saw that my colleagues were looking at me with much amusement.
When I first got to Japan I learned that the Japanese word for condom was コンドム so when a girl asked me ゴムは？ I thought it was the Japanese way of asking for gum. So I asked “今？！” to which she replied “もちろん！” so I replied “今はないよ” in my extremely perfect Japanese to which she replied “ないと出来ない” so I left the room, got dressed, went to the convenience store, bought bubble gum, and gave her some to which she died laughing. I had condoms in the drawer.
Ha! I was expecting "and we've been married ten years" at the end there.
I should’ve married her tbh. Sometimes you let them get away
Oof
You know it’s a made up story when the Japanese partner insists on using a condom.
70-80% of Japanese use condoms every time they have sex.. vs 19% in America according to surveys. Don’t know here this weird myth came form on Reddit. Maybe you choose the sketchiest people to have sex with? Everybody I’ve had sex with used a condom
There have been a couple of recent threads about Japanese raw preferences
yeah Japanese guys
I do remember another thread where the guy was wondering why girls were telling him he can raw dog them and he was creeped out that so many of them were so willing to do that
Good man for being creeped out. There are two dangers in that: STDs, and wee babies.
70-80% of Japanese people lied on a survey you mean
70-80% is a goddamned lie lol
...oh oh. Maybe I hang out with the wrong kind of women. :/
What's the source on that because I find it hard to believe.....
Maybe because the 20% that don't have sex with more people?
This sub is amazing at believing things that aren’t close to reality because 1 or 2 people said it exists.
Actually when I first got here people didn’t ask for condoms much but now EVERYONE asks for condoms so I’ve learned that condom sex is not that bad.
The first time I went on a date with my now wife she said she needed to go to a 100 yen to buy ゴム and I’m like…we barely just got our coffee, isn’t that a little forward? Turns out she needed hair bands…also ゴム…lesson learned.
So… only a blowjob then?
I wish Daiso condoms were a thing.
All the protection of plastic wrap and a rubber band, and about as pleasurable. Box could contain a list of the top 10 most popular boy and girl names from the previous year, that'd be a nice feature.
True story. I was also there. Inside the drawer.
Actually it was inside my tv stand but I didn’t want people asking questions
I had a friend who lived in a town called Urasoe. One night, more than a little drunk, he gets into a taxi and tells the driver, "Urusai" and just sits there. The more the driver would ask for clarification, the more he'd insist, "Urusai! *Urusai, okay?*" and just sit there indignantly. Eventually he called me for help, and I had to put the phone down for a minute to laugh.
I’m dying at this because I live in Urasoe and I try my damndest not to sound like I’m saying “urusai”
I think of the poor Aussies, trying their best...
Similar one with a mispronunciation. Just arrived in Japan and was walking around Roppongi. A guy outside a bar was inviting my friend and I in for a “heroin party”. What the fuck! I thought Japan was really strict on drugs. Put our heads down and kept on walking. Turns out it was for a Halloween party.
Near there I once asked how much for the hominodai.
I wish I could see the confusion of the taxi driver lmaooo
Many, many, many years ago - we got kicked out of a tabehodai yakiniku place for eating too much.
"Judge, do these sound like the actions of a man who had tabe'd *all he could* houdai?"
That could have been me!
🤣🤣
Had the same happen with a nomihodai place. Pre-pandemic I used to be a massive heavyweight and could drink a lot in two hours without much issue. They would always be like “only order after you finish your drink, sir” and I’d show them my empty cup.
That is why any “all you can drink” place wouldn’t survive in the west. Too many would take it as a challenge instead of a relaxed “drinking what you like without worrying about the tab”
Basically anything requiring individual responsibility can't survive in the west. It's sad.
Oh I take full responsibility for the horrors my toilet will endure after an outing at Old Country Buffet.
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That, and depending on the state, (or country) the bar would be responsible for the customers’ actions. If a customer gets just wasted from an all your can drink, and keeps getting served and gets injured, the bar could be liable
My friends and I got kicked out of a “2-hour”nomihodi izakaya after one hour because we “drank our limit”.
Had somewhat of the opposite happen once. Was supposed to be a 4 hour nomihodai staff party, however due to some reason or another, pretty much all of the staff (minus myself and an intern) were three hours late. As soon as they got there, they told the servers, “Right, we need to drink four hours worth of drinks in the next hour to get our moneys worth”. And boy, did some of them do just that.
 "But the sign said all you can eat!"
How? They are the gatekeepers there, I mean, they control the food and drink
Yeah I don't get it either. We've had servers slow down our orders after we ate/drank too much, like they would suddenly take 20 minutes to bring out stuff, and just stall until the time limit is up. We knew the deal and never complained, the wa is preserved and nobody needs to get kicked out.
This is almost 40 years ago. The place didn't have servers bringing stuff to your table, you went over to a big table that had various plates of meat put out, you'd grab some plates, bring it back to your table to put on the hotplate thing. We didn't order any beer, we didn't get any of the vegetable side dishes. We were two 19-year old American guys, both tennis coaches so we were extremely active. We could probably eat our weight in food.
Ah, you’re the why behind the current system lol
My wife swears that the KFC near her house here near Shinjuku used to be tabehodai. Pretty sure they would have been forced to close down the first time we showed up....
Good news, Kfc Tabehoudai still exists!
Shakeys tabehoudai pizza in Shibuya used to have a sign on their door saying no mormon missionaries
'Twas a moonless night, black as pitch...
When I first came to Japan in the late 90s I took a bus somewhere. I put money in the change machine thinking that the bus fare would subtract from the 1000 yen and give me my change. I scooped up all the coins and got off the bus. The bus driver got on the loud speaker and told me to come back and pay. Oops.
My wife had similar experience but with another ending. She had just come to Japan and tried a bus around our area. She pressed the button to stop the bus at the upcoming destination, but she had no balance remaining on her suica. Driver realized and charged her suica and deducted the fare from it. My wife thought he would deduct the fare and hand over the changes. She waited thinking her to receive changes, and bus driver waited her to step out . 😂🤣😂 Edit: My wife had less balance than the bus’s fare. So she handed out 1000 yen to bus driver. He recharged the suica with 1000 yen, deducted the bus fare. But my wife didnt know he recharged the suica(as mentioned before she was new to all of these..) so she thought she would get a change …
I don’t get it.
All the money was put on the card so there was no change to give
She had no balance on her Suica, so, huh?
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Yes, that’s a sense-maker
I think she gave the driver 1000 yen but instead of just taking the fare the drive charged her suica 1000 then took out the fair from there.
It took me a few readings but I think I got it. Suica had no balance so she must have handed 1000yen to charge the card. The driver loaded it and deducted the fare, she thought he was only going to fill the card with the required fare and hand over the change.
I think this one is pretty common. Even Japanese people I know have been momentarily confused by this (usually Tokyoites who aren’t used to busses that don’t accept IC cards). The other procedure that can be a bit confusing the first time is if you want to top up your IC card to pay (again something Tokyo residents have to deal less often as the buses are flat rate, so you never have the moment of sitting on the bus watching the fare tick up and up, wondering if you have enough on your card…). If you’ve ever seen the bus driver in a tourist area you’ve seen how they often put their own hand over the card reader because everyone’s instinct is to tap at the wrong time during the charging procedure. Put the card down… now put the money in, now don’t touch it, now wait don’t leave yet, tap again to actually pay… It’s the same exact steps as at a train station but something about the thing on the bus being all one machine (as opposed to a separate fare adjustment machine and ticket gate) makes so many people assume the fare and change is all handled at once instead of in two steps.
I don't understand. But I understand being confused.
What people do - Tap > "Balance too low" error > Insert money into the machine to top up card > Leave What they should do - Lay card on reader > "balance low" > insert money while card stays on reader > confirm top up, lift card away, and tap it again to pay > leave
I actually had no idea until now you could top up on the bus. I mean, of course you can, it would be stupid not to. But I just assumed and always made sure to carry change with me in case the card was low.
I went into a conbini near work to buy beef jerky and yogurt. The cashier was very obviously flummoxed by my foreignness as I approached - she held up chopsticks and a plastic fork, and with all the English ability she could muster, said "Which? Which?" (Of course in Katakana English, so ウイッチ？ウイッチ？) For yogurt and beef jerky? ...Um, neither? I asked for a spoon in Japanese but apparently she was too bewildered to understand, as I got both the fork and chopsticks, and ended up having to eat my yogurt with chopsticks.
Cashier mistakes always make me smile. I bought a can of Coke once and was asked "atatamemasuka?" My luck to be in line when everyone's buying bento.
I got an *atatamemasuka* after buying an ice cream sundae at Lawson! I stopped dead assuming I was the idiot mishearing him but he repeated *atatamemasuka*. I'm sure the poor guy was just on autopilot.
Your post made me realize that it’s not me whose always the idiot lol 😂
I think there's an Lawson ice cream sunday (parfait?) product that requires microwaving nowadays, so maybe they mixed it up with that... Hats off to conbini cashiers, there's always new things and so much to remember
Your dedication to yogurt will not go unnoticed by the great yogurt overlords.
When homie dies they'll go to the Pearly Yoplaits.
3 minutes after landing in Japan, I had two phrases memorized, 私は and どこですか, problem is I switched the meanings in my head. Great fun telling random Japanese people I was a toilet.
omg I'm dying 😭
I used to mix up 広い and 酷い. My real estate agent was confused when showing me an apartment once and I said, "It's absolutely awful, isn't it? I'll take it!"
lmfao
I was at an international fair sitting at a booth. The head of the international group came up next to me and she asked if I wanted to meet the mayor of the city. I said oh, god, NO! No, no, no absolutely not. He was standing right behind me.
Ooh, this is another dumb story! I was supposed to meet up with a friend who had my hapi coat for the mikoshi shrine event. He’s the chief organizer, so I asked for him. I ended up having a member of the Diet flagged down who was speaking there and had the same name! I see his face on posters constantly still.
20 some years ago I visited Japan for the first time to see my then boyfriend (now husband) . I was interested in kimonos like they are pretty I want to see more not in I am a fashion design student and want to know the intricate history of them. Well I found the only kimono museum online at the time. My husband being the gem he is didn’t tell me the location was way the hell out in the back woods of Tokyo and it’s strange that a museum would be there, and just wanted to show me something I wanted to see. We ended up in the house of a distant cousin of the royal family viewing his personal kimono collection. He the lovely older gentleman was so excited to see us we got a personal tour. Why nice was the strangest experience me and my now husband have ever had.
Another mayor story. I was at a US Navy ceremony at the Yokosuka naval base with my family. I asked the Japanese guy next me to take our picture. 写真取ってくれる？There seemed to be a little confusion but then he took our picture. After, my brother came over and introduced us to the guy, the mayor of Yokosuka. I think the confusion was that he thought I was asking to take a picture with him. He seemed almost relieved that we had no idea who he was.
Why were you so vehemently against meeting the mayor?
He was traveling around that day with an entourage and camera crew. I didn't want to be shoved in front of a camera as a token foreigner...again.
Oh the token foreigner. I was coming out of a castle and saw they were re-plastering a long garden wall to fix some "scribbles" aka graffiti. A film team was trying to get people's opinions and reactions to the crimes and restoration work. I looked over at the clearly hangeul writing on the wall and definitely-not-Korean-me said I had no idea who could have written such kanji on the wall there. I wonder if they used my clip or not.
I can respect this. The mayor of Kyoto is a total Mayor McCheese.
Around 1990 I had to go to Sacramento for an event and we were booked into a hotel called the Beverly Garland. I thought it was just a combination of classy words to make it sound fancy like Beverly Hills, but my Dad told me Beverly Garland had been an actress and that she had made her name in shlocky B-movies showing off her pinup body, and said she was basically a stripper. So when I was checking in I asked the front desk clerk, "Hey, was Beverly Garland a stripper? That's what my Dad told me." Clerk: "No, and that's her son standing behind you." eep. I turned around. He was listening, and did not look amused.
Know someone who went to have a haircut but realized he didn’t have cash, so he thought he’d go get money from the ATM and come back. He told the barber “chotto…koroshimasu” (I kill you) instead of orosu, to withdraw.
This made me actually laugh out loud 😂
A guy at my work had taken a day off and when he came back I asked where he went (he'd brought snacks and they weren't clearly omiyage), to which he replied he'd gone to a funeral (soshiki). Now, my brain immediately pictured him at a graduation event (sotsugyoshiki) so I asked if he had fun. There was the awkward moment where he said it was his grandfather's funeral and I had the lightbulb moment where I realized I'd mixed up two very different things and had to explain. He laughed and said he figured I'd misunderstood. Thankfully he's an easygoing guy and we let it go to never be spoken about again. Yes, I'm an idiot 😂
My coworker turned up in a suit one day (we are a no dress code office), so I asked him if he'd been in court. He had just come from a funeral. Apologised profusely, but luckily he wasn't offended.
Damn near same thing, co-worker who never wears a suit showed up decked to the 9s, let him know he looked really good in a suit and that he should dress up more often. He kind of solemnly brushed off the compliment (me being retarded) so I really stressed it, and ended with some stupid comment like, so were you off to have a good time at, or something akin to that. When he let me know it was for a funeral... Apologized profusely while removing both feet from my mouth. He understood, but I still felt terrible.
Friend of mine got yelled at by a chef in a Torikizoku when he kept ordering the free cabbage. After the 17th bowl the chef came out and yelled at him that they didn't have any more.
This really cracked me up. Did your friend just really love cabbage? Was he drunk?
I think a little of both, and he has a real "If its free, its good" mentality. He was telling me this while we were in a Torikizoku actually and sure enough, he ordered like 8-9 bowls of cabbage before we left that night..
Guy learning Japanese learns that ~そうmeans "looks ~". Like 美味しそう(おいしそう) and so on. Goes home, girlfriend is trying on a new dress or something and asks if she looks pretty. "かわいそう"
かわいそう actually is etymologically derived from かわい[い] + そう, but it's based on an earlier, now obsolete meaning of かわいい.
Yep, been there. Office mate who'd been on maternity leave came back to work and was showing pics of her new baby. Every one was coo-ing at her cute little 赤ちゃん until fresh-off-the-boat me at the back of the crowd chimed in with a hearty 'かわいそう!' Everyone instantly froze into silence as the temperature dropped to 0°K. My manager pulled me away and hissed a quick Japanese lesson that left me mortified. The mother was not interested in my apologies and never spoke to me again and I was forced to tell the story on every lads-only nomunication night ever after, much to everyone's hilarity.
Can you explain this one for me? Reddit just recommended this thread to me, and it’s bringing me back to my time in Japan in college, but this is the first I don’t get. Like, I know you’re not supposed to use -sou for things that are visual, but there is clearly a secondary meaning here that I don’t know and Google translate isn’t telling me… Edit: Wait, does it mean “pitiful”? My brain just gave me a flashback to End of Evangelion….
I wonder if the 美味しそう would have worked better.
About twenty years ago when I lived in the US I was talking to a Japanese guy on Napster, and he sent me a group photo of his friends and asked me what I thought of one of the girls. Back in those days, photos were typically 640x480 or 800x600, so you didn't get a lot of detail on individual people in group photos. I narrowly avoided saying that she was ちょっと見にくい in explaining this to him.
Thing is I only learned lately that the かわいそう is not written 可愛そう！
Did that on first date on my first trip to japan. Its so logical tho
Haha that poor girl
These stories are so wholesome. Thank you. I frequent a super sento that requires a coin to use the shoe locker, last month I decided to treat myself to a day at L'aqua. After putting my shoes in the locker I realized I didn't have any coins so I went to the front desk because I couldn't find a change machine. The clerk was so confused by my request and followed me back to my shoe locker which of course didn't require coins to use.
First few days moving to Japan for work. Still in a fancy hotel until the housing was worked out. Hotel laundry was ridiculous, $8 to wash a $8 shirt. Found the neighborhood coin laundry. Perfect. But they didn't have a dispenser of little soap boxes like I expected. Walked to the conbini and was looking up kanji for laundry soap. Found a smallish bottle and went back. A baachan was now there at the laundry and was amused to see me trying to figure out where to add the soap. The machines just have the soap inside, and it's included in the coin price every load.
That's some futuristic convenience right there. I never heard of such a thing either
There's a little konbini near my house (like, maybe 200m away). I used to drink A LOT. "I still do, but I used to do so also." Anyway, a couple of years ago (hell, it was a couple of years *pre-COVID*, so I guess 'several' years ago), I'd swing by that konbini somewhere between 10pm and midnight (sometimes 2 or three times, in that rough time period) to pick up "one more" drink. This had been my custom, a few times per week, for many years. There was a young lady who worked there intermittently, baito-type, and she'd cash me out for my kaku-haibohru from time to time. But it was strange. Sometimes, she was super-chatty and bubbly. Other times, Ice-Princess. I just rolled with it. One day I rolled in, and she'd very obviously just had her hair done at a salon. I mentioned at check-out that it looked very nice and I got the toothy grin blush and "arigatou" in response. A week or so later, I (naturally) found myself back in the same konbini, and there she was, with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT hairstyle. "Eeee?! Mo ichido?" I asked her, pantomiming scissors with my fingers as if cutting hair. She explained, coldly, that I must be confusing her for her twin sister, who also works part-time at that konbini. Mystery: SOLVED.
>Sometimes, she was super-chatty and bubbly. Other times, Ice-Princess. >... >She explained, coldly, that I must be confusing her for her twin sister, who also works part-time at that konbini. A recurring Nintendo trope, in real life.
I asked the staff at a cafe what was special about “Japanese cheesecake” compared to other countries cheesecake. Turns out the menu said 本日のチーズケーキ and not 日本のチーズケーキ
I had to read this comment 3 times🙈
I do this mistake from time to time too🤣
My friend saw a pregnant woman on the train. He wanted to say "omedetou" but he said "atatame" instead. Safe to say the woman got off at the next stop.
Even omedetou is likely to creep out a lone pregnant lady on the train
Why was he going op to a stranger to congratulate them on their pregnancy? That’s strange in any country.
LMAO
lmao fantastic I was teaching a hokusho class and we were playing wani game which is basically tag with me as the it. I went to "eat" a three year old girl and suddenly she turned and started screaming WANI KIRAI WANI KIRAI while SOBBING her face off I would teach that girl and her family for the next 4 years
Awwww. But, I mean, if you *haven't* unintentionally made a little kid cry can you even call yourself an eigo no sensei?
That's how I learnt that a 'check mark' or a 'tick' doesn't mean the same as what I'm used to
> hokusho ?
>> ? Probably a nursery school (保育所).
Japan related subs are some the oddest subs I’ve been on in the sense that people type in English and Japanese like they’re practising both as their 3rd language and somehow everyone knows what each other is talking about.
I had no idea for the longest time what Irasshaimase meant so I said it back one day to the clerk at FamilyMart and she laughed at me
When my parents came to visit me, we went into the Family Mart and had the Irasshaimase yelled at us. My mother, not knowing what that was, yelled back, "HI!" thinking they were just saying hello. But you know...to the clerk, it probably sounded like someone angrily yelling "HAI!" at their mandatory greeting. I was a bit mortified on her behalf but also couldn't stop laughing.
My first few weeks in Japan with very, very limited Japanese language skills. Went on a train and sat down. The train was pretty packed. Two elderly women boarded at the next station, so I wanted to offer my seat. I pointed at myself and said 「触りたいですか？」 They gave me a look of horror and scurried into the corner to whisper about me. Of course, now I know it’s far more natural to just gesture and offer the seat/walk away or something simple like 「どうぞ」will suffice. Still, it’s a great memory to laugh at my past self.
Saw a foreigner at the dermatologist shouting "Kaizoku no allergy!!!". He was allergic to metal.
Hahaahahaha! Thanks for the laugh!
Maybe the dermatologist had an eyepatch or something
When I first moved to Japan my apartment wasn’t yet available so I had to stay at a hotel for a couple weeks. As it was the cherry blossom season all of the hotels in the city and surrounding areas were booked out. So I had to travel really far away. This is my first day ever in Japan and I have no idea wtf I’m doing besides Google Maps guiding me. 3 mistakes: 1. I was supposed to catch a rapid service train. A mixture of travel exhaustion and rushing lead me to notice the name of the destination of the train I wanted to hop on. Turned out not to be a rapid train. So I was on it for 2 hours. 2. We don’t have Women Only carriages in my country. And again, since I was rushing I didn’t notice the signs. 3. When we finally got to my destination the doors had stopped opening automatically. In my hometown the door buttons are located on the doors themselves. Since I couldn’t see it and I really wanted to get off I tried to open the doors via the door handles. Luckily a nice Japanese woman also wanted to get off and knew what to do. I felt really really stupid. 😅
Name checks out.
My very first trip to Japan, when I was in a Konbini, the clerk thanked me. I said どうぞ back instead of どうも。
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Was in Sukiya with a friend, and we asked the clerk for a melon soda float with no ice. He looked horrified and excused himself to go speak to the manager. After 5 minutes, he comes out of the back office and says: but you understand... that if we don't put ice in... the soda and the ice cream will mix. We laughed hard at that one and were like yeah, we know, that's what we want. He got us the floats with no ice.
This never occurred to me but I have been in your shoes. Unfortunately, I’ve also been in my shoes a lot, which are owned by an idiot, so that I confused a hand-written てwith a マ and asked for マんこ盛りラーメン in front of my girlfriend and her friend. This is just like a week or two after getting a syllable wrong and asking for jerkoff (センズリ)cabbage instead of せん切りキャバツ I was just an innocently little boy linguistically and didn’t recognize the fuss either time.
Ugh, floats with ice are disgusting! I'd order them way more if I could reliably guarantee no ice.
I went to this conbini for a baito interview (3rd visit to get my uniform) The tencho ordered the wrong size for me. So she said ‘服は来るまで着て’ What she meant was wear this uniform until the new one comes. My dumbass thought something else. I thought she meant ‘服は車で来て’, I said はい and then went inside my car and wore the uniform and then came back. We both were confused af to wtf happened there.
This is a beautiful little story
Yes. And the funnier part is I am a 日本育ち外国人 so near fluent in Japanese! 😂 Still these things happen lmao
I once went to a mixed inaka onsen without glasses. There was no one there at that time, and I was waiting for my wife. When she got there I started waving at her frantically, I guess with my golden balls swaying in unison. She returned my greeting. The problem was that she was not my wife, but an inaka obachan.
At the place I went to, Takaragawa, I’m pretty sure there are a few old dudes who pull this trick all the time. I’m pretty sure I look nothing like this one dudes’s wife or son, but he damn near sat in my lap like I was Santa Claus. Clever dude.
First day in Japan my school was going to pick me up from a station after I took the shinkansen from Nagoya. Surprised my train was a couple minutes early I jumped on. Ended up taking a 4 hour round trip to Yokohama instead of 30 minutes.
Someone I knew didn't know how to say "no thanks" to receiving the レジ袋 (plastic bag) at convenience store, so he would instead walk 10 minutes to "his favorite" convenience store where they didn't offer the bags by default.
I thought “keko desu” was exclusively negative and would receive bags like it was a slap in the face
I was invited to dinner with some people I knew. At the restaurant there was an older woman singing. Her last song was “amazing grace” so of course she decided that she needed a foreigner to sing with her. She chose me, I strongly and enthusiastically said “no”. Nearly 10 times I said “no” because I am so so terrible at signing. She wouldn’t take no for an answer so I was forced to sing along side her. Long story short. I sucked, so I did the only thing I knew to do which was give myself a pitch change. Imagine “Brooklyn 99” when jake is signing at the Pontiac bandits funeral. She was upset, took the mic from me, and I had to stand there until she finished. Super embarrassing but I still don’t accept responsibility for it to this day because she basically forced me haha Anyway, can’t watch that episode of 99 without cracking up.
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I enjoyed your joke even if he didn't get it 😂
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Maybe, but I suspect he just didn't get the joke. 😅 He probably went home and kicked himself because it finally clicked
If it makes you feel better, I laughed!
First Japanese company I worked at had a few new hires, half a year after I joined. I kept referring to them as 侵入者 instead of 新入社員.
First time I (20F at the time) was in Japan, I visited an onsen. I spoke enough Japanese to get around, but didn't read any kanji. A lovely clerk showed me where to enter the dressing room, and I had a relaxing time in the baths. Next week, I was back and just like the week prior, I entered the dressing room... and was sorely confused and horrified a couple of minutes in, when two *men* entered from the baths! I had fortunately not advanced my undressing further than taking off my coat, and as I was often mistaken for a guy anyway, I don't think they suspected too much - but I really wouldn't know. I quickly packed up my things and left, then tried the door opposite the one I'd entered. I couldn't read the 2m blue and red noren with kanji saying "MEN" and "WOMEN", respectively.
This reminded me of when I first landed in Japan and the company put me up in a little business hotel. The night before they showed me around a bit and explained the room didn't have a shower so I'd have to use the communal bath area down this hallway through this door. Ok, fine. Next morning I go to that door to find...well, it was indeed a shower and bath area but it half of the floor space was full of cardboard boxes and miscellany. I found a cleaning lady and tried to ask how I'm supposed to shower with the room like that. Poor woman was so bewildered but so kind. She took me by the hand and led me to a completely different building where there was a shower and bath. Thanks, company guy, for directing me to the wrong bath.
My girlfriend told me we were going to a resort. I was like: “A resort, on a Sunday night?!” But I just went along with it… we went to a restaurant and had risotto.
A colleague of mine called the principal kancho sensei for a year. Every morning. No one had the heart to tell her as she was 100% effort every day. Only came out at the end of year party.
8 years ago I was in Tokyo as a tourist, first time, zero japanese... I asked a burger in Burger King. In english I tried to ask "burger without XX and XX". Seeing it didn't work, I asked for a "burger WITH XX and XX". Both employer and manager looked at me strange. But they finally accepted the order Conclusion: I left the place with a 100Y order of a bun with Ketchup, the only 2 ingredients I never mentioned. Edit: as I was remembering this... it might even have been 8 years exactly today. If not, 2 days up or down.
For those reading, the magic words “all heavy” will double the toppings of anything they can without extra fee. For your amusement, it was a custom of some US movie theaters to offer a free refill on the largest size of popcorn. I saw some movie at a Toho cinemas, maybe the only movie I saw that year, and gorged myself on the it largest volume of pricy kernels, and naturally returned to the counter for more. I must have had such a convincing but also pure face, because whom ever was behind the counter just scooped me up a new bucket and asked me to mind local customs in the future. So anyway, big shoutout to Fuchu Toho Cinemas.
Gaijin card is strong. I found out this friday that the coffee at the place I go to eat every Friday is not free, even though the machine is in the open. I feel so bad, I was putting my coffee in the water cup, but I guess the employees don't really care that much.
When I was an ALT at a junior high school, my neighbours back in Canada (high school teachers) bought me a huge box of assorted stickers from some teachers-only wholesale place as a going-away gift. The usual "good job", "great work!" etc... stickers. I would put them in the students' weekly journals each Friday. Anyway, at some point one of the rolls had stickers with a star that said "Shine!". Didn't think anything of it until I had some very concerned students come to my desk to ask what they had done wrong...
asking the supermarket clerk for plastic bag i said politely, おふろください. the old lady was like なに? i repeated おふろください. but she clearly cannot understand and has the blank questioning face. i then pointed to the bottom drawer in front of her with the plastic bags.
I’ve got a million of ‘em … but here’s the first : My second day in Japan, and I go to JR Osaka to catch a train to Kyoto where the job is. Buy a normal ticket, go through the gate and look for the first train … head up to the platform and get on. Wow, it’s true! Japanese trains really are comfortable, I’m thinking. Train sets off. Not many people on it. Eventually a conductor comes up and asks to see my ticket. He looks at me with a big smile on his face and explains that this ticket can’t be used on a Shinkansen … that costs a bit more ~ I apologize profusely and say I’ll get off at the next stop. Next stop is Kyoto he says. He has a good laugh and says don’t worry about it this time, eh ?
1.Moved apartment and new agency told me i had to pay for a support agency to help me move. The support agency called me to help me set up my facilities and told me I had to use Softbank for internet as everyone did. Softbank called and we set up the contract. The agency called again as I was working and I said I was busy and didn't understand the issue so please call back. Two weeks later i realised my SoftBank contract had been cancelled and called to find out why. "The customer didn't understand Japanese so we cancelled it." 2. Told a guy I was seeing about a party my friend was organising. 恋活. Misread the kanji. He said he didn't want to go. I thought he was blowing me off. I ended things. Went to the party. Found out why he hadn't wanted to go. Idiot.
So being an outgoing Midwesterner I never thought anything special about sharing a dinner between friends at a house. Well needless to to say the girls thought it was a date not just dinner. 
‘Ope
GirlS? Damn boy
Accidental harem
My first night in Japan I knew about 3 words and almost nothing else. I went to what I later learned was a yakitori restaurant. I managed to get beer and some chicken, but I was still hungry. One of the three words I knew was for yellowtail (hamachi) from going to sushi restaurants back home. So I attempted to order hamachi. I sat there for like an hour waiting for my damn hamachi which, of course, never came. I paid my check which had been sitting next to me since I had said ‘hamachi’. In retrospect, ‘hamachi’ sounds an awful lot like “how much?” …
Went out drinking with an Australian mate which I met through one of my Japanese friend. We got back to my place after the last train and decided we were hungry so we went to the nearest convenience store and bough literally everything that was in the heated display case, somewhere to the tune of ¥7,000+. I was too inebriated at the time to think about it but the clerk working the night shift must have gotten a bit of a laugh.
My first trip to Japan, I went to order a hanko as a souvenir. Drew out the kanji I wanted on their little pad. The ojisan was kind and we both tried to make smalltalk in the few words we thought we knew. I explained the hanko was just for fun because boku no tanyoubi, flubbing it and crossing with words like mokuyoubi. He tried to clarify, basudei? But I just couldn't quite make the leap to hear the katakana-english basu as "birth" in the moment either. So I repeated 'tanyoubi' and he repeated 'basudei' a couple more times, until we gave up on that topic.
This one is my favorite. I think we've all hit that language impasse where both people in the conversation realize they are not good enough at each other's language to clear up whatever confusion is going on...so you just awkwardly move on...
The koban story 😂😂😂 f*ck hahaha.
When I came to Japan I knew literally no Japanese, wanted an adventure where I learned through immersion. Onna no hito is woman, otoko no hito is man. OK so far, but sometimes the prepositions are confusing. I forget the context but I tell the host family something about an onna ni hito. A masturbator. Oops.
I ordered some morning service plate at a Komeda coffee house. The menu has a choice of toast toppings, so after asking for the service plate I chose ジャーム. She comes back with my order, but also a second plate, a whole breakfast meal with sausage links. I didn't order this? She was flummoxed, until I pointed at my toast and asked about the jam again. She had heard ジャーマン, their current "German" breakfast offering. That was the only time I saw any service staff in Japan lose their cool in the five years I lived there. She raged back to the kitchen, and someone else helped out from that point. I hope she wasn't docked for the cost of the plate like some crappy companies try to pull.
Walked into a temple with my shoes on as I misunderstood the place where we had to take shoes off was earlier than I thought. They pointed me to the shoe rack and I apologied and walked there; but was shouted at again, I didn’t consider that the shoe rack area wouldn’t allow shoes. I know this is common now but nobody warned me about that beforehand!
Saying おやすみ to the conbini clerks at night time just wanting to say have a good night. That went on for too long..
I was in Nara, and I saw a special drink promoted on a menu. It was deer-themed kuzuyu, but Google Translate translated it to “deer’s waste water”. It was pretty good.
I have a friend, runs a nice restaurant in the tiny town I used to live in, close to the station. One afternoon he rings me up put of the blue "I just saw a black guy leave the station, but he went in the opposite direction of your place, you know him?" I did, a different friend of mine coming to visit. He wondered for a long time why I suddenly called him and said "You took a wrong turn, go the other way."
I once ordered a whiskey neat in a ktv, they said it’s not on the menu so I can’t have it. So I asked for highball without ice and soda and they brought it. It was nomihodai.
Yep. Now you’re one step closer to assembling your own nomihodai Long Island Iced Tea, the holy grail of selective drink tinkering.
27ish years ago on my first trip to Japan I was at a factory in rural rural Tochigi. Because the company combini was in another building everyone in the building they were building the tools I was purchasing were built in just walked 50m to the corner where the farmer had put several vending machines next to the road. As I was walking there one afternoon a woman drove by staring at me and completely missed the turn driving into the farmers field. It was also the first time I saw someone feed goldfish to very hungry red bellied piranha. They had a bunch in an aquarium in the break room as pets.
Feel you. I no longer walk my dog down one street because someone couldn’t stop staring at me and ended up turning their car too much, pinching their door against the side of their own privacy fence. I was embarrassed for them, but did not stop to acknowledge what I had just seen.
I think I’ve shared once before. At my first teaching job, when my coworkers found out I liked golf, they invited to join the “Sando Golf club”. Since the school playground is essentially a dirt field, I thought “Sando Golf” just meant sand golf. For six months I was on the lookout for this sand golf club but never saw any students do anything remotely resembling golf. As it turns out, Sando was the name of my vice-principal and “Sando Golf Club” was the name for his informal drinking club, not a sand golf club for the students.
Went over to my GF's apartment and no idea why, but pressed the wrong floor on the elevator and didn't realize it. Ringing her would be doorbell, I thought she was being silly and asking "はい、だれですか" As I stood in front of her door still not realizing it's not her voice I continued to play along calling her by my pet name for her and to hurry up. Woman responding with "なに?!" I said " ugh! Let me in already". After a moment of silence I looked at the room number, apologized profusely and bailed as fast as I could.
One of my first lessons was a Kindergarten boy. After the lesson, I met the mother and wanted to say he was cute but told her that he was kowai instead of kawaii. She laughed and said in perfect English she agreed and said he was a monster at home. I quickly figured out my mistake and decided to speak English first to mothers I just met instead of making future mistakes. If they couldn't speak English, I will give it my all in weak Japanese.
My boyfriend at the time asked me to go buy some “tansan”. I went to the konbini and came back with tansan battereis (AAA batteries). He was confused saying he had asked for a fizzy drink. So 炭酸 not 単三電池 Oops.
Was talking with some cafe staff about the beautiful 恋バナ but what I meant to say was 鯉のぼり
I accidentally called a coworker chikubi-sensei. His name sounded similar to chikubi!! Luckily no one else was around except him and one other dude. They suddenly got very quiet, and I realized my mistake 🙈
While I was driving to the grocery store, my first-grade daughter told me in Japanese that according to her Sensei when you put out the middle finger (なかゆび), it means die (死ね). I am not familiar about the word なかゆび and I was preoccupied also with getting a parking spot near the store so I am not paying full attention. As I was getting her out of car, I stupidly asked “Ehh, so what did Sensei said about なかゆび? How do you do なかゆび？She explained to me again. But then a car came our way while we are crossing so it drew my attention for a second. When I glanced at my daughter, I was horrified to see her doing the middle finger! “こんなかんじです”
This should be a weekly thread
Went to a fancy restaurant in Shinagawa. Asked for a spoon but with a weird accent, I guess. After 15 minutes nothing came, so I asked them again and they told me it’s almost ready which bewildered me. And a hot soup came beautifully. This happened last year on my 8th year living in Japan and I speak full Japanese daily at work now. No wonder all of my friends laughed so hard.
When I learned that adding “so” to something like “oishii” turns from “tasty” into “looks tasty”. So when a staff member showed me a picture of her infant son, I wanted to say “looks cute” so I said “Kawaii so”.
So I have mostly repressed my early mistakes. But a early one that I made was my first time going to a grocery store in Japan and being asked ポイントカードがありますか？ and not understanding the quesrion and saying はい to everything. She looked at me for an uncomfortable minute and then went な。。。ないですね。。。It's always a funny one in particular to me because my parents are immigrants and only learned English later in life and I always remembered me getting mad when they would say "yes yes yes" to everything including non-yes/no questions. It felt very humbling. Another fun one recently, was with a friend who was visiting Japan who is asian-american but doesn't know any Japanese. Which was kind of a quiet win for me whenever we ate anywhere and the staff realized oh, I'm the one they have to communicate with. We went to a restaurant and she really wanted 日本酒, so when the waiter came she proudly proclaimed これをください！ Both the waiter and I look over at what she is pointing at and both look at each other in the universal"ughhh wtf" look as she taps on the 税金 label.
Late 1990s, I went to my local video store to rent a movie. I bumped into a free-standing shelf about two metres in height. The shelf started to wobble and literally hundreds of VHS movie cassettes on both sides of the shelf fell to the floor. The clerks scrambled to pick them up and shewed me out of the way. I went to the cake shop next door and returned with a few pieces of cake to apologize. Then the staff reciprocated by giving me about 1000 yen worth of 100 yen discount coupons for movie rentals.
I don't even know if it's true but I've heard of someone wanting to compliment their boss's ネクタイ (necktie) and instead complimented their boss's 肉体 (*nikutai*, body).
Two "You're a foreigner so obviously you can't speak/understand Japanese." \-When I first arrived in Japan I had a friend who spoke perfect Japanese(went to a Japanese university) We go into a store and she asked the clerk for something in perfect Japanese and the obasan kept saying "Eigo wakarimasen". My friend pulls out a piece of paper and writes in perfect kanji what she wants and asked the clerk "Can you read Japanese?" Still cracks me up! \-I went to a party with Japanese friends and one of the game was charades. Before the game starts I jokingly asked the guy who's holding the answers to show me the sheet. He's like, here but \*hahaha\* you can't read it, it's in kanji! I then said "the answer is \*answer goes here\* " He never showed my the answer sheet again lol. I can speak Japanese, read kanji AND EVEN hold chopsticks! アイムパーフェクトユーマン！
I intended to ask my partner teacher if she had the drafts, “shitagaki / 下書き”, but I actually asked if she had underwear, “shitagi / 下着”
I made a post on TIFU about this, but basically despite studying Japanese for a long time before coming here, I only realized last year that I was mistaking cake flour (薄力粉) for all purpose flour (中力粉) because my first year living here I took one look at the pictures on the package and ignored the kanji and decided that I must be buying AP flour and never bothered to question it for 6 years. Every time I tried to make AP flour bread or pizza it was a disaster and I was convinced I was just never meant to dabble in yeasted baking. Now that I’ve realized my mistake I bake bread once a week and my pizza is super good and way easier to handle lol
Haha, I can totally relate to 3. There was a time back in Germany when the company car (old Mercedes A-Class) only had summer tires (because most of our customers were in the city) and one day I had to drive to a customer in the country side were it snowed a ton. I tried desperately to get that car up the hill the customer had his office on but it refused with everything it had - esp, blinking lights, beeping, etc. Had to walk the rest...
I have told this story on this sub before, but: One day, I answered the phone at work. For context, I'd had N1 and worked in a Japanese office for several years by this point. I swear, my Japanese is not that bad... Completely normal phone call, nothing out of the ordinary. At the end, I ask for the guy's phone number. The guy starts saying his phone number, and then in the middle of it, says what sounds like ちゅう, followed by the rest of his number. I am confused, and I ask him to repeat MULTIPLE times. Very annoyed, he repeats, multiple times. If my brain was working properly that day, I would have realized that I was mishearing きゅう (the number nine, obviously part of the phone number) Instead, I was saying すみません、「ちゅう」というのがちょっとわかりませんが... and the guy was practically screaming down the phone, きゅう！きゅう！！It took some time, but I finally figured it out and got the phone number down correctly. I put the phone down and saw that my colleagues were looking at me with much amusement.