Do you speak Japanese?

Hi,

I live in Osaka and I do not speak Japanese because I came for a job opportunity, working in Japan was not something that I really planned so I could not learn Japanese before to move here.

I am feeling well integrated, even if I do not speak Japanese, I really enjoy to live here and does not feel alone at all. I have many japanese friends who speaks english and in the daily life I can arrive to communicate with gestures and a translation app. I think that as long as you live in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Okinawa you can easily survive without speaking Japanese because many people speak a bit.

For the doctors like you said, I manage to find english speaker ones (if you go on your embassy website they gave you a list), and for administrative stuff I ask my friends.

After few months in Japan, I can understand a bit the conversations and have a basic level of conversation (supermarkets, restaurants..). I only started to study Japanese recently because I want to learn it since I live here and going stay for at least a year, but it is difficult because I am really busy with my job so I study a bit every morning before to go to the office. Also when I heard often the same word at the office I always ask my coworkers to explain it to me so I started to get some work-vocabulary. I am doing baby step but at least I am trying.

I think that as long as you are open minded and conscious that the Japanese Culture is different from yours, that you are ready to do some efforts to understand Japanese Thinking you will be fine without speaking japanese in a first time.

I lived before in other countries (6 months each time) without speaking the native language because everytime I moved there without really planning it so I never had time to learn the language. So I knew what will be my situation in Japan and how I needed to do to feel integrated even without speaking Japanese. So I really think that it's only depend of yourself and your way of thinking.