Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.
Douglas Adams, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Before traveling to Japan, I had a look at the language. Unfortunately, it was like Klingon to me. Sounds great, but virtually no chance to learn it. It just does not stick.
Luckily, Google Translate worked really, really well. In a Bed and Breakfast, the host used the voice input and simply spoke in Japanese and showed me the Google translation. In other cases, I just wrote down what I wanted to say/ask and showed the other person the translation.
Personally I prefer the written translations, because you can simply download the language packs and use them offline.
The camera function was especially useful for signs and the like, although that required an Internet connection.
For example, to find out how to increase the temperature of the AC:
Or to find out that bears might be a problem:
Apparently there are also specialized devices for translation:
but for me, Google Translate worked well enough.
Of course, there are other options, e.g., taking a photo of what you want to buy and showing the vendor the photo:
Or using signs/infographics you can point to:
So yeah, not being able to speak the language was not that much of a problem. Still, learning the language and being able to speak to the locals would have been better.
Next time, perhaps …