Tourism to Japan shows no signs of waning. Along with this, we’re seeing increasing reports of Tourists Behaving Badly. Now, local media is reporting on a special subclass of the annoying tourist problem: visitors who insist on speaking their mother tongue even when Japanese staff clearly don’t understand them.
The tourist language barrier
Japan’s relative lack of English ability has been an ongoing issue in its bustling tourism scene for a while. It’s become more pronounced as the country sets record tourism numbers, with visitors topping three million a month steadily since March 2024.
As a result, restaurants and retail stores are struggling to craft strategies to help their staff communicate with a diverse client base. Service industry experts recommend that stores use picture menus along with translations in English, Korean, and Mandarin Chinese – the three key languages among Japanese tourists – to smooth the way.
However, not everyone wants to serve foreign tourists. One izakaya owner in Tokyo made waves recently when they went on a lengthy social media tirade complaining about English-speaking tourists, demanding that visitors to their store “learn Japanese.”
While this was one outspoken example, that izakaya owner isn’t alone. In recent surveys, 70% of restaurants surveyed said they had no plan to serve inbound tourists. When asked why, most said that handling customers who speak multiple languages was just too difficult. However, 29% said that they just thought tourists were ill-mannered.
“You’re useless”
Even at establishments that do cater to foreigners, staff are struggling to keep customers happy. Japanese online magazine Money Post Web interviewed workers who say some tourists insist on using their mother tongue come hell or high water.
A 20-year-old woman, A, who works at a dining bar said she struggles with her imperfect English skills, for which she’s blamed herself. However, recently, she says, she’s had to deal with a variety of obnoxious customers. Some are English speakers who assume that, because English is the world’s unofficial lingua franca, that everyone can speak it.
“You can’t fully rely on a translation app when dealing with customers,” A said. “It’s been more than a few times where I haven’t been able to serve them and they wave their hands and shoe me away as if to say, ‘You’re useless.'”
“Of course, I blame my lack of study. I’ve learned English since the 6th grade. But I want to scream, ‘This is Japan – use Japanese words and Japanese-style manners!'”
It’s not just English speakers, either. A 40-year-old male shop manager, B, says that there have been cases where he tries to communicate in English – but customers respond in their native language.
“When I go to another country, I at least try to learn and use its words of greeting and appreciation. But I hardly ever heard these men and women say ‘arigatou’ or ‘konnnichi wa.’ It’s a sad situation.”
Is patience the name of the game?
As A’s story makes clear, AI and translation apps aren’t a perfect – or, in many cases, even a partial – solution. One solution would be for stores to hire more diverse staff – particularly foreign staff who speak a variety of languages. Japan’s convenience stores (combinis) have employed this strategy successfully. At many combini these days, a majority of the staff are foreign nationals.
However, not every small restaurant can replicate this strategy. It’s hard in current economic conditions for some restaurants to find anyone to work, let alone people who are multilingual.
One restaurant owner, C, provides insight into what restaurants can do better. He says that, when interacting with tourists, he recalls his experiences abroad and how it felt when he couldn’t communicate with staff. Based on this, he tries to ask customers in English to “speak slowly” and “use simple words” so that he and they can understand each other.
“The real thrill in intercultural communication,” he says, “is in that frustration of miscommunication and the joy of exchanging meaning.”
Of course, tourists can – and should – make more of an effort. As the other shop manager said, it doesn’t take much to learn a few words of greeting and appreciation. It’s the least a country should be able to expect from its guests. At UJ, we recommend the 3-level course in Japanese from Rocket Languages to get you started (note: affiliate link). You may not get anywhere near fluent – but at least you can learn enough to meet your hosts halfway.
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Sources
【インバウンドの現場】頑なに母国語で押し通す外国人観光客に困惑する日本人スタッフたち「通じないとみるや手をひらひら」「もっと寄り添う姿勢を見せて」. Money Post Web
