Here are some everyday Japanese phrases that might come in handy.

You'll definitely have fun trying them out, and most locals will be delighted that you've made the effort.

Go on… Have a go!

Japanese writing combines the use of two syllabaries plus Chinese characters. The two syllabaries are made up of 50 basic sounds, and can be learned surprisingly quickly.

Hiragana is traditionally used to write Japanese words as well as grammatical endings.

Adding special marks to some of the symbols creates some extra sounds

The small symbol っ doubles the consonant of the syllable that follows it. So, for example, the symbols きて would be pronounced ki-te But if you add a っ you get きって , which would be pronounced kit-te.

Words can have totally different meanings according to the length of vowels and consonants in Japanese. So きて means Come! and きって means Cut!

びよういん pronounced bi-yo-in means beauty parlour and びょういん pronounced byo-in means hospital.

The other syllabary is called Katakana. It uses exactly the same sounds as hiragana but is used mainly for writing foreign words.

with the additional sounds

The small っ appears as ッ in katakana.

Some examples of foreign words written in katakana would be

Idea アイディア ai-di-a

Jazz ジャズ ja-zu

Job ジョブ jo-bu

Schedule スケジュール su-ke-ju-ru

Restaurant レストラン re-su-to-ran

Elevator エレベータ e-re-beh-ta

Coffee コーヒー ko-hi

Special スペシャル su-pe-sha-ru

Set セット set-to

Japanese is very creative with its use of foreign words so sometimes the katakana form can sound totally different from the original word

ホーム ho-mu believe it or not is a contraction of the word platform!

リーモコン ree-mo-con is a contraction of remote control

デパート de-pah-to is a short version of department store

ビル bi-ru is a shortened version of the world building

バス ba-su can be used to write both bus and bath

Remember that katakana is used for writing all foreign words, not just English words. So you can also see words like アルバイト a-ru-bai-to meaning part time job, coming from the German word Arbeit.

Another symbol that looks very similar to マ the katakana ma, is 々. This symbol is used to repeat characters.

The character 人 means a person. If you repeat this character it means (some) people. But instead of writing 人人 in Japanese you write 人々.

You will also see the symbol 〒 a lot. It is the sign for Post Office. It also denotes Postal Codes.