Do you point to your crotch, cross your legs and say, "痛い!痛い!(itai! itai!)" Translation: painful.
Off to the hospital, as you think about how to tell the doctor (and hospital staff, who direct you where to go) what the problem is. Never mind that you have no idea where to find an English-speaking doctor. Obviously, this pain is too unbearable to wait out, so you decide to visit the doctor. It suddenly dawns on you, "this must be a bladder infection." Or, to be less crude more technical, a urinary tract infection. Where did this unimaginable pain come from? You take some drugs and try to find a comfortable position to sit in, even though your bladder feels like it's being crushed by your entire abdominal cavity. So, if you have a problem, you check the references and try one out (a gamble in itself) or drag along someone who can translate for you.īut what about things you might not necessarily need to go to the doctor for? Or, let's suppose one day you wake up and it hurts to pee. Many cities do offer a list of resources for foreign residents, which include English-speaking medical professionals and translators (and I mean actual cities, rather than the small rural towns - I don't know how common English-speaking professionals are in rural areas). In Japan, unless in Tokyo or another large city, finding English-speaking (or any language other than Japanese, for that matter) is a challenge. S.Doctor visits and medical issues can be a huge inconvenience in a foreign country, at least, if you can't speak the language. Text-book of colloquial Japanese by Rudolf Lange & Christopher Noss (1912) in Roman characters.Conversational Japanese for beginners by Arthur Rose-Innes (1920).Japanese for busy people: learning guide.An introduction to Japanese, syntax, grammar & language, by Michiel Kamermans (2010).The phonology of Japanese /r/ by Laurence Labrune, in Journal of East Asian linguistics (2014).Origins of the Japanese language by Alexander Vovin, in Oxford research encyclopedia in linguistics (2017).TheJapanesePage: Japanese course (+ audio).Visualizing Japanese grammar by Shoko Hamano.NHK: Japanese course, expressions (+ audio).On the etymology of the name of Mount Fuji 富士山 Fujisan, by Alexander Vovin (2017).Japanese names and how to read them: Japanese proper names, geographical and personal, by Albert Koop & Hogitaro Inada (1922).
Loecsen: Japanese-English common phrases (+ audio).→ online translation: Japanese-English & other languages & web page Tatoeba: sentences in Japanese, with translation (audio).Mirai: Japanese-English online translation (& other languages).Weblio: Japanese-English translation of phrases.Japanese learner's dictionary: Japanese-English dictionary.NihongoResources: Japanese-English dictionary.Eijiro: Japanese-English dictionary & translation of phrases.