{"id":91,"date":"2008-09-29T22:34:20","date_gmt":"2008-09-30T05:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=91"},"modified":"2008-09-29T22:37:23","modified_gmt":"2008-09-30T05:37:23","slug":"the-words-you-really-need-to-get-around-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=91","title":{"rendered":"The Words You Really Need to get Around in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After months of squeezing in language study where I could, my trip with Kate to Japan in May taught me what words were really <i>most<\/i> useful.  These were the ones that we used daily as we navigated Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto, Koya-san, and all the spaces in between:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li><b>wakarimasu<\/b> (I understand) and <b>wakarimasen<\/b> (I don&#8217;t understand) &#8212; probably the most useful phrases ever.\n<li><b>daijobu<\/b>: It&#8217;s all good, everything&#8217;s okay.\n<li><b>sugoi<\/b>: wow! amazing!\n<li><b>chizu<\/b>: map (surprisingly common!)\n<li><b>gomi bako<\/b>: trash can (surprisingly rare!)\n<li>A bunch of handy train words, including <b>tsugi<\/b> (next), <b>hidari<\/b> (left), <b>migi<\/b> right, <b>eki<\/b> (station), and <b>noriba<\/b> (platform).  Useful for learning which door (left or right) will open at the next station.\n<li><b>nimotsu<\/b> (luggage) and <b>omoi<\/b> (heavy)\n<li><b>ichimai<\/b> (one), <b>nimai<\/b> (two), <b>sanmai<\/b> (three): counters for flat things, like&#8230;\n<li><b>kippu<\/b>: ticket (this is one of my favorite Japanese words to say.  It&#8217;s just fun.)\n<li><b>iriguchi<\/b> (entrance) and <b>deguchi<\/b> (exit) &#8212; I even learned the kanji for these, since we encountered them so often\n<li><b>oki<\/b> (big) and <b>chiisai<\/b> (small) &#8212; I also learned kanji for these, primarily from toilets.  You can select a big flush or a small flush based on the kanji labels.\n<li><b>kore o, onegai shimasu<\/b>: this one(s), please &#8212; this was my generic way to indicate that I wanted to purchase something.\n<li><b>shita<\/b> (under) and <b>mae<\/b> (in front of, before) and <b>ue ni<\/b> (up, above) and <b>shita e<\/b> (down, lit. &#8220;towards under&#8221;)\n<li><b>shite imasu<\/b>: know\n<li><b>panfuretto<\/b>: brochure (from &#8220;pamphlet&#8221;?)\n<li><b>mizu<\/b>: water\n<li><b>tori<\/b>: bird\n<li><b>kaieru<\/b>: frog\n<li><b>chou<\/b>: butterfly\n<li><b>taki<\/b>: waterfall\n<li><b>zembu<\/b>: all\n<li><b>itsumo<\/b>: always\n<li><b>nani mo nai<\/b>: nothing (lit. &#8220;what more not&#8221;)\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>There are far, far more that we used (consulting our phrasebooks frequently), but these are the ones that stuck with me. There&#8217;s nothing like living it to provide a great incentive to learn it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After months of squeezing in language study where I could, my trip with Kate to Japan in May taught me what words were really most useful. These were the ones that we used daily as we navigated Tokyo, Nikko, Kyoto, Koya-san, and all the spaces in between: wakarimasu (I understand) and wakarimasen (I don&#8217;t understand) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,31],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}