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Anonymous G joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 18 hours later, 21 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,674
i lived there for 6 years do you want a legitimate answer or do you want a minichan answer?
legitimate answer is that it wasn't that bad, apartments there are expensive but if you've lived there for a bit or are somewhat fluent in japanese you can haggle the prices, if you arent you can forget about it- same goes with the fact that there are some landlords who wont rent to gaijin but if you can speak the language you can get the prices knocked down, my apartment cost me a little more than 1200 a month which isn't that bad really, i know a lot of people who have only had to pay around 700-800. Train passes are super expensive (around 150 a week) but thats only for trains that go out of tokyo to other cities, like yokohama to tokyo would be around that much, the lines that stay in tokyo are significantly less expensive so a lot of the people i knew either had scooters or "motorcycles" that were only around 100cc, if you are wondering about actual cars etc you can forget it because they are mindblowingly expensive. You have to pay for your license which isn't bad but you also have to pay an ungodly amount of money just to get permission to buy a car, so you'll be spending around 10,000-all the way up to 20k for this in addition to buying the actual car.
so basically what im saying to you OP is that you seem like a weeabooo who would speak very little japanese who only wants to live there because you think its some anime wonderland, so the chances of you living there and getting a job that has a regular salary are slim to none. I'm sure you could teach english but the only way you'd be able to do this is if you have a bachelors degree (it doesn't matter what the degree is in though)
there is a shitload of bureaucracy so get prepared for that. I dont understand why anyone would live in tokyo, you could live in osaka easily and osaka is significantly cheaper (you can find apartments there anywhere from 350 USD a month to 6-700), though if you want to live in tokyo and pay a normal amount for an apartment (normal amount being compared to how much you would pay in osaka or yokohama) you can forget it.
I would say that monthly expenses including rent, food, normal regular stuff you could expect to spend around 1500 USD a month
(Edited 1 minute later.)
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 2 minutes later, 21 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,677
im not fluent but im alright, fluent to me meaning being able to speak it 100% At the time I could speak around 75% which is enough honestly but its been a few years. I've known a few ex-pats who couldn't speak any at all but they didnt really have to work or anything because their spouses were japanese but it depends on what job you have i guess? like if you teach english there you dont need to be fluent in japanese at all which seems strange but makes sense, however if you wanna do something besides teaching english it would probably be a good idea to at least know a bit (like a conversational amount i guess)
one thing i didnt like about living there was that you couldn't use a bank or credit card to pay for stuff, its still pretty much a cash based society.
Anonymous H replied with this 11 years ago, 8 minutes later, 21 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,690
@previous (G)
How'd you learn it? I've heard it's a very difficult language to learn, you must've worked hard just to get that good.
I'm having a go at learning it myself. Just finishing up hiragana now.
Anonymous G replied with this 11 years ago, 35 minutes later, 22 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,741
> How'd you learn it? I've heard it's a very difficult language to learn, you must've worked hard just to get that good. > > I'm having a go at learning it myself. Just finishing up hiragana now.
honestly its not that difficult, when I started learning it i was kinda intimidated but in my own opinion something like french is a lot more difficult than japanese but being able to write it is a whole other ball game
how did I learn it? same way as anyone learns any other languages, when I was in high school I learned some of it but not a lot but it also helps if you have someone that already knows the language so that you can practice it with them, so I guess just practice all the fuckin time, i also was lucky enough to be able to use skype to further practice. Its hard for me to say what a good way of learning it is though because I kinda just threw myself into it, the class when I was in HS didn't really teach me anything besides a few select phrases and vowels etc. Some people say you can learn it by watching anime or dubbed movies with japanese subtitles and vice versa but I never understood that. There are a bunch of books you can use though that make it kind of simple but I forgot which ones I actually used but they are pretty much all the same. I would say start with katagana first just to get it out of the way and also to make hiragana a bit easier, I dont know shit about kanji and never bothered to learn it honestly but when i moved there it wasnt really an issue. there was only a few times where I got caught up in the "oh shit i dont know kanji" but even then a lot of it was in mixed-kan anyways so even though i didnt understand kanji i could still ballpark it
but since you said you are already finishing up hiragana I'm assuming that means you're already okay at it and you'd be good enough to just sort of pick up the rest of it but its hard to say, a lot of people learn shit differently. Another good thing is if you're trying to speak it and you're pretty bad at it already a lot of japanese people will jump at the chance to talk to you in english, the reason being is because english language courses in japan are super fucking expensive (anywhere from 80-100 USD an hour) but also keep in mind that they're pretty bad at it but even so you can go back and forth just enough to figure it out. A lot of stuff like train stations etc are bilingual depending on where you are departing from so its not a big deal either. The only problems I really had were getting my phone set up with a carrier there (I was using my phone that i brought from the united states) cause of the way the payment tiers work are kinda confusing
Killer Lettuce !!iNo3FkiZx replied with this 11 years ago, 38 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,780
@previous (G)
I'm primarily following the Tae Kim guide to learn it. It's a free online guide that teaches the language from the ground up, starting with the wriitng systems and then going into grammar and such. Though 4chan also has a guide and list of resources that I'll look at at a later point.
Yeah, I've heard that kanji is the hatdest part. I've seen it said a few times that you need to memorise 2000 symbols to have an adult level reading proficiency! But hey, I'll just keep at it. It's not particularly difficult to learn small clusters of symbols by rote until they're lodged in the long-term memory.
There's apparently websites you go to to talk with native speakers, for the explicit purpose of getting them to correct you and such. Not that I'm ready for that, but it's nice to have that resource.
So why did you move to Tokyo, anyway? For work? It must've been something important if you stayed there for 6 years.
Anonymous G replied with this 11 years ago, 27 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,796
> I'm primarily following the Tae Kim guide to learn it. It's a free online guide that teaches the language from the ground up, starting with the wriitng systems and then going into grammar and such. Though 4chan also has a guide and list of resources that I'll look at at a later point. > > Yeah, I've heard that kanji is the hatdest part. I've seen it said a few times that you need to memorise 2000 symbols to have an adult level reading proficiency! But hey, I'll just keep at it. It's not particularly difficult to learn small clusters of symbols by rote until they're lodged in the long-term memory. > > There's apparently websites you go to to talk with native speakers, for the explicit purpose of getting them to correct you and such. Not that I'm ready for that, but it's nice to have that resource. > > So why did you move to Tokyo, anyway? For work? It must've been something important if you stayed there for 6 years.
primarily yeah it was work, i did some web development for a while and then I kinda just ended up doing a bunch of different things in addition to that for a few different companies, not like start ups or anything but most of it revolved around simple apps and shit for mobile services, it was alright but i got kinda sick of it and while living in japan was alright it wasnt just "for me" personally, i mentioned the bureaucracy earlier in my posts and that was a big reason i decided to come back to the states, i still keep in touch with some friends i made over there but pretty much everyone i ended up working with kinda just got shuffled around from company to company, so I guess kinda like how start ups work? in the sense that we would work for them for a year or two until the company ran out of money, then we would just go and do the same shit for another company etc. It got really fuckin monotonous and boring.
I did some design work for some clubs (mostly advertising type of shit) and stuff and I actually liked doing that as well but it wasn't really stable because they would basically just hire you for 2 months or so but it was okay because you can get a lot of other jobs that way but it was kinda strange, the only way i could have gotten hired on to be an actual employee at a firm or whatever would be to just totally give myself up to the company i wanted to work for and i didnt wanna do that, theres a lot of bullshit that goes on with it. I know you probably heard about the fact that a lot of employees go out drinking after work but the worst part about it was you were pretty much forced to, and if you didn't wanna do it it was considered a form of insolence and would hurt chances of actually moving up in whatever company etc.
It's pretty stupid and im glad I didn't have to do it honestly but its kind of a sociopathic thing to do honestly, a friend of mine actually did live in yokohama but was unfortunate enough to have to work in tokyo and from yokohama to tokyo is like a 2 hour train ride to get there and a 2 hour train ride back to yokohama and it was rare he got to sleep more than 5 hours a night, iirc he quit to go work for another company but still does app work and stuff but still its the same "work here for a year and then go somewhere else", its unfortunate, another one of my coworkers who was from the uk was able to get lucky enough to start his own business that gave tours and shit to foreigners but I'm not sure if he's super successful or anything, its hard to make your own way in that country because of the amount of people you kinda have to fight with. What I mean is like say you decided to be a musician or something, unless you really had something unique about you you wouldn't make any money. Interestingly enough about that one of the other things I didn't understand when I was there was how bands and stuff had to PAY the venue in order to play there and the only way they could make a profit was from selling their own merchandise, it was really crazy, not like anywhere else where yu get booked and then go play and you get a cut of the tickets or whatever, you gotta have some sort of hustle to make yourself stand out from the thousands of other people that are also vying for your position you know? its a huge herd mentality there and its so rare that someone is able to break out of that and do their own thing, i kinda took that for granted when i lived there, the united states is pretty shitty but for all of its faults at least you can go out and make your own way on your own terms.
(Edited 1 minute later.)
Anonymous G double-posted this 11 years ago, 5 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,797
oh yeah also at the risk of sounding racist or whatever I should mention that if you find yourself in tokyo, stay the fuck away from middle easterns/nigerians, the reason why is they are almost always criminals and a lot of the nigerians sell drugs and do petty crimes (scamming etc), i think you only have to worry about that if you end up in roppongi though, a lot of tourists get caught up in that shit and end up getting in loads of trouble because the tourists arent familiar with them and they will take them out to go drink etc and then at the end of the day they'll pull some shit like "you have to pay me now i was nice enough to show you all of these places etc" it happens all the time, its even worse because police can stop and search you at any time for any reason, if you are japanese you can refuse and they cant do anything but if you're a foreigner and you refuse you will end up being booked and taken to the station because, well, you're a foreigner.
Roppongi is shady as fuck, easily the shadiest place I've ever been to anyways, its pretty normal though until around 7 pm and then the entire scene just changes and there are loads of prostitutes, yakuza, nigerians etc. Bad news. Yakuza dont really fuck with foreigners though but nigerians and stuff will try and fuck with you, the middle eastern guys are always drug dealers
i was lucky enough to not be involved with this type of shit and also because any time i went out at night i always had my friends with me but if you're just hanging out there by yourself 9 times out of 10 you will try and get fucked with, thats also why now its so hard to start a business there if you are a foreigner (besides being expensive) because of all the problems caused by nigerians and arab ex-pats etc.
Honestly imo I would suggest just like, visiting there for a month or two as opposed to living there because at least if you are just visiting you can go back to your home country and have some sense of normalcy but its also like i said already, it depends on where you go. If you go to sendai or something and dont really party too much in the center of tokyo you'll be alright, lotta cool gems you can find everywhere besides tokyo
a lot of chinese people are being deported as well because of shady shit but i think that goes without saying but its worse because they have tons of cash and try to pay off cops and stuff, luckily enough the cops dont fall for that shit
(Edited 9 minutes later.)
Anonymous G triple-posted this 11 years ago, 15 minutes later, 23 hours after the original post[^][v]#608,804
i was gonna edit this into my post but it wouldnt let me so ill just post it anyways, i have a few stories but the best one imo is when i flew into haneda for the first time
i was sitting next to another guy on the plane and he had brought a "bath bomb" or whatever those things are called, that you take baths with for aeromatherapy or something? anyways we were going through customs and one of them had come out of the packaging in his suitcase and got ground up or whatever and customs were trying to ask him what it was but since he didn't understand how to explain it to them in japanese he just kept saying 'white powder! white powder! Water bomb!" obviously the custom agents didn't understand at all but he just kept saying that it was a "bomb" and the cops had to come and test it for drugs and stuff while he was detained for a few hours
(Edited 1 minute later.)
Million Muffin March replied with this 11 years ago, 5 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#608,885
like if a comedian tells a bad joke on a plane, there's big trouble
DasSheeple joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 1 hour later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#608,899
@Anonymous G
I'm no way near weeaboo, but you mentioning Osaka made me curious. I've actually seen on nomadlife how much I'd need to live 2-3 months there. I have a job as a software dev. and I can work remotely from anywhere I want atm... I was actually thinking about picking Osaka for my next destination.
How hard would it be to get by if I have no Japanese knowledge. I'd go there just to see what all the hype is about, why some people I talked with call it "Osaka rock city", if it's true that they have a shitload of garage punk gigs all the time, awesome skateparks and great street spots to ride.
All in all, would I survive in Osaka without any Japanese?
Anonymous G replied with this 11 years ago, 14 hours later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#609,127
> @Anonymous G > > I'm no way near weeaboo, but you mentioning Osaka made me curious. I've actually seen on nomadlife how much I'd need to live 2-3 months there. I have a job as a software dev. and I can work remotely from anywhere I want atm... I was actually thinking about picking Osaka for my next destination. > > How hard would it be to get by if I have no Japanese knowledge. I'd go there just to see what all the hype is about, why some people I talked with call it "Osaka rock city", if it's true that they have a shitload of garage punk gigs all the time, awesome skateparks and great street spots to ride. > > All in all, would I survive in Osaka without any Japanese?
based on what you've typed theres really no way you could make it, if you legitimately can work from anywhere you want there is no reason for you to go to osaka, and as far as "osaka rock city" ive never heard anyone call it that nor have i ever heard anyone refer to the garage gigs and skateparks
> would I survive in osaka without any japanese?
no, thats a ridiculous question as well, you might as well be saying "could I survive in russia without being able to read cyrillic?" maybe, but the chances are very slim, you would not be able to get any visa besides a tourist visa.
Anonymous J joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 10 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#609,136
Japan sounds intimidating. I bet it's easier for a Japanese person to make ends meet in New York city than for an American to get by over there.
(Edited 42 seconds later.)
Anonymous G replied with this 11 years ago, 39 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#609,169
> Japan sounds intimidating. I bet it's easier for a Japanese person to make ends meet in New York city than for an American to get by over there.
not really, its sort of the same, but the big thing is most japanese already have degrees even though they are worthless (like i said before it can be a degree in anything just as long as its a degree) so usually when they come to the united states theres no problem, unfortunately a lot of americans dont have degrees so they think they can move to japan and just get any job, then they find out that they cant and say shit like "cant i just be a waiter?", you COULD be a waiter but the problem with that is that with those type of jobs you're not going to be able to make much more than 10 dollars an hour, plus they dont realize that working in a restaurant is legitimately hard work, so you have that combined with the fact that they dont speak any japanese and it just ends up being impossible. There's also a test you have to take for the language as well (I forgot the name of it tbh) that allows you to live there and work in a legit society, by that I mean being a salaryman i guess, I didn't have to take it because of the work I did and because it was more akin to contract work, which you can get just fine but you have to have a hustle in the way that you have to have connections in that type of work environment, if you want to work as a legitimate employee for a company and have it be stable you have to take it and you have to be fluent (being able to read, write, and to a lesser degree speak) and iirc you have to take it at a university which also has its own set of hurdles. Keep in mind that you can teach english for a company and thats sort of stable but in my experience a lot of the people end up just either getting another job or setting up their own english teaching service which is totally possible, but when you go to teach english there you have to deal with a bunch of dumb shit depending on if you go through the JET program or another program of which there are a ton of.
Also a lot of people are like "Wow i cant wait to go to japan it seems awesome!" but then they get there and end up getting an apartment etc and realize that it wasn't what they had in mind at all, which is another reason why I say just go there and visit for a month or two, that way if you hate it you dont have anything tying you down and can easily just go back to america or wherever
its kind of intimidating but in different ways, one of the things i noticed over there were that there really wasnt any "sick days" that you could take, if you're sick you cant really call up your boss and say "yeah man im not feeling good so im just gonna sleep in", you will pretty much be fired on the spot, you get some vacation time which is alright i guess but you really have to work for it, not like in the states where some businesses have automatic vacation time you get when you get hired
oh also another thing i didnt like about living there which i kinda already touched on was that there are only so many ways you can spend your free time and a lot of it involves drinking, I dont really drink much and every so often i smoke weed just because drinking makes me feel shitty and i always get a hang over, in the united states even though weed and stuff is looked down upon and even though its illegal you wont get hassled for it too much as long as you're mindful about it, whereas in japan you will get arrested for even having thc in your system, it doesn't matter if you have some on you or have rolling papers or anything, you will go to jail. Even for having rolling papers because rolling your own cigarettes in japan is still not really a big thing, plus it is waaaaaaay more expensive, like $100 usd for a pre-rolled joint, there were a few people i knew there that smoked but i always saw it sold in pre-rolled joints, i never saw actual buds or anything, once again, japanese police DO NOT fuck around with that stuff and will not hesitate to arrest foreigners, it happens all the time.
if you go there there are alot of stuff that have cannabis leaves and stuff on them but its more just of like an image thing, though sometimes you can get away with smoking because most japanese people dont even know what it smells like and will just think you are smoking a cigarette but it depends, also i dont know if i already said this but if you are walking around and police thing that you might be on drugs or whatever they will give you a urinalysis right on the spot, but from what i know japanese people are much more into stimulants and stuff anyways
(Edited 8 minutes later.)
Meowth joined in and replied with this 11 years ago, 2 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#609,175
Time for me to head out for evening - Thanks for the read. I have only been there on business which means all expenses paid.
All major hotels took credit cards and provided a nice list of places like dept stores that took them - list included places to avoid unless cash used - and you're correct most places only took cash.
Had lots of restaurants to chose from that took credit cards - Lots of taxi's took them. Betting that as Olympics come near just about every place will take them. People do not like to travel with huge amounts of cash on them.
I also found many Japanese speak English. Then again I mostly dealt with places that took credit cards
> Time for me to head out for evening - Thanks for the read. I have only been there on business which means all expenses paid. > > All major hotels took credit cards and provided a nice list of places like dept stores that took them - list included places to avoid unless cash used - and you're correct most places only took cash. > > Had lots of restaurants to chose from that took credit cards - Lots of taxi's took them. Betting that as Olympics come near just about every place will take them. People do not like to travel with huge amounts of cash on them. > > Then again I mostly dealt with places that took credit cards
lol whatever you say, you obviously havent dealt with anyone in the country big surprise because you dont know shit about anything you cant pull from wikipedia anyways
in b4 2,000 paragraph essay etc, what do i know? i only lived and worked there in addition to being able to speak and read japanese, you can barely read and write in english
Anonymous L replied with this 11 years ago, 33 minutes later, 1 day after the original post[^][v]#609,235