Japanese travel phrases: what to say at the airport, station, hotel and shop

Most travel phrasebooks make the same mistake: they teach you to talk. But a trip to Japan is overwhelmingly a listening problem. You will say five things at a convenience store till and hear fifteen, all of them in polite set formulas that are easy to recognise once you've met them and completely opaque if you haven't. This guide is organised by situation, gives readings for everything, and — unusually — devotes as much attention to the phrases staff will aim at you as to the phrases you'll produce. If you're short on time, jump to the ten-phrase shortlist at the end.

1. The politeness minimum: four expressions that carry half the load

Before any situational vocabulary, four expressions do a disproportionate amount of work. Learn these properly and you can transact almost anything by combining them with a pointed finger.

Two notes on refusing, because English speakers get this wrong in both directions. A bare いいえ is rare and reads as blunt; 大丈夫です is the everyday soft no. 結構です (けっこうです) also means "no thank you", but it can land as curt, so keep 大丈夫です as your default. And when you don't follow something, わかりません ("I don't understand") is safer than 知りません, which can sound like "not my problem". The three rescue phrases worth having ready are もう一度お願いします (もういちど おねがいします, "once more please"), ゆっくり話してください (ゆっくり はなして ください, "please speak slowly") and 英語が話せる人はいますか (えいごが はなせる ひとは いますか, "is there anyone who speaks English?"). None of them is rude; all three are used by Japanese people too.

2. Arrival and the airport

The airport is the easiest leg — signage is bilingual and staff expect foreign passengers — so it's a good place to practise recognising the written words, which are not bilingual once you leave. Immigration is 入国審査 (にゅうこくしんさ), customs is 税関 (ぜいかん), and baggage claim is 手荷物受取所 (てにもつ うけとりじょ). At the desk you may be asked your purpose of travel; 観光です (かんこうです, "sightseeing") and a duration such as 一週間です (いっしゅうかんです, "one week") is a complete answer.

Notice how much of the airport is katakana: リムジンバス, ターミナル, カウンター, トイレ. This is true of the whole trip, and it means the single highest-return piece of preparation is being able to read katakana at speed rather than decoding it letter by letter. If yours is shaky, the kana module is a better use of your last two weeks than memorising more phrases, and the loanword guide covers the borrowings you'll actually see on signs and menus.

3. Trains and stations

This is where travellers lose the most time, and the fix is mostly vocabulary rather than sentences. Two systems matter. First, destinations are marked with 〜行き — 東京行き (とうきょうゆき, "bound for Tokyo"), usually read ゆき on signs and announcements. Second, and more important, trains on the same platform and the same line run at different service classes, and boarding the wrong one is the classic mistake: you sit down happily and then watch your station go past the window.

The safe habit is simple: if you're unsure, take the 各駅停車. It's slower and it cannot strand you. If you're on a platform and the display is changing faster than you can read it, the one question that resolves everything is この電車は渋谷に止まりますか (この でんしゃは しぶやに とまりますか, "does this train stop at Shibuya?"). Staff and fellow passengers answer that one readily, often with a gesture.

4. Taxis and hotels

Taxis are the least demanding conversation of the trip, because one pattern does everything: destination + までお願いします. 東京駅までお願いします (とうきょうえきまで おねがいします, "to Tokyo Station please"). If the name is hard to pronounce, show the address on your phone and say この住所までお願いします (この じゅうしょまで おねがいします, "to this address please"). To stop, ここで止めてください (ここで とめてください). For a receipt, 領収書をお願いします (りょうしゅうしょを おねがいします). One practical note: the rear passenger door is opened and closed by the driver, so don't reach for it — and a taxi showing 空車 (くうしゃ) in the windscreen is the one that's free.

5. Shopping, numbers and money

Shopping is where the smallest amount of Japanese buys the most convenience, because the transactions are short and highly scripted. これください (これ ください, "this one please") and いくらですか ("how much is it?") will get you through most of it. A few more make you self-sufficient: 試着してもいいですか (しちゃく しても いいですか, "may I try this on?"), カードで払えますか (カードで はらえますか, "can I pay by card?"), 他の色はありますか (ほかの いろは ありますか, "do you have another colour?"), もう少し大きいサイズはありますか (もうすこし おおきい サイズは ありますか, "do you have a slightly bigger size?"), and 免税できますか (めんぜい できますか, "can I get tax-free?"). If you're only browsing, 見ているだけです (みているだけです, "just looking") ends the exchange politely.

Numbers are the part travellers underprepare, and prices are said fast. Three sound changes cause almost all the confusion, and they're worth drilling out loud rather than reading: in the hundreds, 300 is さんびゃく, 600 is ろっぴゃく and 800 is はっぴゃく; in the thousands, 3,000 is さんぜん and 8,000 is はっせん. Above that, Japanese counts in units of ten thousand — 10,000 is 一万 (いちまん), never bare まん, and 15,000 is 一万五千 (いちまんごせん). That last habit is the one that catches English speakers, because a price you'd think of as "fifteen thousand" is spoken as "one man five sen". Cash is still widely used alongside IC cards, so it helps to know お札 (おさつ, notes) and 小銭 (こぜに, coins), and to distinguish a till receipt, レシート, from the formal 領収書 (りょうしゅうしょ) you'd need for expenses. Counting the items themselves uses yet another set — 一つ (ひとつ), 二つ (ふたつ), 三つ (みっつ) for objects, 一人 (ひとり), 二人 (ふたり) for people — and the counters guide explains why Japanese has so many of these and which ones a visitor actually needs.

6. Restaurants, in brief

Eating out needs surprisingly little production. On entering you'll be asked how many people; 二人です (ふたりです) answers it. Then メニューをお願いします, then point and say これをお願いします. おすすめは何ですか (おすすめは なんですか, "what do you recommend?") is worth the effort because it usually gets you the good thing. To pay, お会計お願いします (おかいけい おねがいします) — though in many places you take the bill to the till rather than paying at the table. If you have dietary restrictions, アレルギーがあります ("I have an allergy") plus 〜が食べられません (〜が たべられません, "I can't eat 〜") is clear and standard, and worth writing down in advance for anything serious.

Two customs surprise first-time visitors. Many ramen and set-meal shops sell you a 食券 (しょっけん, meal ticket) from a vending machine at the door before you sit down, so there's no ordering conversation at all. And at an izakaya you may be charged for お通し (おとおし), a small appetiser you didn't order — this is a normal seating charge, not a mistake. Reading the menu itself is the real skill here, and it's a large enough topic to have its own article: see the guide to reading Japanese menus for the dish names, cooking-method words and set-meal vocabulary rather than duplicating them here.

7. Asking directions — and understanding the answer

Asking is easy: すみません、〜はどこですか covers everything from a station to a toilet. The hard part, which phrasebooks almost never address, is that you will get a fluent forty-word reply and understand none of it. The remedy is to learn the answer vocabulary rather than more questions — there are only about a dozen words, they recur constantly, and knowing them turns an incomprehensible stream into a usable instruction.

Put together, a typical answer sounds like 二つ目の信号を右に曲がって、まっすぐ行ってください。銀行の手前です (ふたつめの しんごうを みぎに まがって、まっすぐ いって ください。ぎんこうの てまえです) — "turn right at the second light, go straight, it's just before the bank." Nothing in that sentence is difficult once the dozen words are in place. Two more useful additions: 道に迷いました (みちに まよいました, "I'm lost") and 歩いて行けますか (あるいて いけますか, "can I walk there?"), which saves you a great deal of unnecessary walking.

8. Trouble and emergencies

You will probably never need this section, which is exactly why it should be the part you actually memorise — under stress you won't be looking anything up. The emergency numbers are 110番 (ひゃくとおばん) for police and 119番 (ひゃくじゅうきゅうばん) for fire and ambulance. A 交番 (こうばん), the small neighbourhood police box, is also where lost property tends to end up, and staff there are used to helping visitors.

Note the verb in 財布を落としました. Japanese frames lost objects as "dropped" far more readily than English does, and it's the phrasing station staff expect. If you're at a clinic, you may be asked to describe the pain rather than just locate it — the expected answers are onomatopoeic, so a throbbing pain is ズキズキ and a sharp griping stomach pain is キリキリ. It's a small thing that makes a difficult conversation considerably faster.

9. The listening half: what they will say to you

Here is the section most phrasebooks skip, and the one that determines whether a transaction feels smooth or bewildering. Service Japanese is delivered in honorific language — 敬語 — which means the verbs are not the ones you learned. 食べる becomes お召し上がり, 持つ becomes お持ち, 待つ becomes お待ち. You do not need to produce any of this; you need to recognise about fifteen fixed formulas. The keigo guide explains the system if you want the logic, but for a trip, pattern recognition is enough.

Station and train announcements are the other half of the listening problem, and they're also formulaic: まもなく二番線に電車が参ります (まもなく にばんせんに でんしゃが まいります, "a train will shortly arrive at platform two"), 白線の内側までお下がりください (はくせんの うちがわまで おさがり ください, "please stand back behind the white line"), ドアが閉まります、ご注意ください (ドアが しまります、ごちゅうい ください, "the doors are closing, please take care"), and 次は渋谷です (つぎは しぶやです, "next is Shibuya"). Four sentences, heard hundreds of times a day. Learn them once and the soundscape stops being noise.

If your trip is close and you can only learn ten things, learn these — chosen for coverage rather than politeness points, and all usable with pointing:

1. すみません — opens every interaction
2. お願いします (おねがいします) — makes anything a polite request
3. ありがとうございます — closes every interaction
4. これください — buys or orders anything you can point at
5. いくらですか — how much is it
6. 〜はどこですか — where is 〜 (station, toilet, exit, anything)
7. 〜に行きたいです (〜に いきたいです) — I want to go to 〜, the sentence that gets you unstuck
8. 大丈夫です (だいじょうぶです) — the soft no, and the answer to half the questions in section 9
9. もう一度お願いします (もういちど おねがいします) — say that again, please
10. 英語が話せる人はいますか (えいごが はなせる ひとは いますか) — the escape hatch, used politely

Practise them out loud rather than by reading, because the failure mode on a trip is not forgetting the words — it's producing them in an English rhythm that the listener has to decode. Japanese gives every mora roughly equal length, so ありがとうございます is ten even beats, not "arigaTOH-gozaiMASS". The pronunciation guide covers the handful of habits worth fixing before you go, and running a few sessions on the study page with the everyday sets — plus the N5 essentials and the N5 word list, which between them contain most of the nouns above — will get the vocabulary into your mouth rather than just onto your screen. Anything you meet on a sign and can't place is worth adding to your review deck that evening.