English in Japan?

Hi guys, im new here and i found this forum to get more info about japan. Many of my questions r now already answerd, but what i did not find yet was: How good do Japanese speak English? Will i come alonge with English everywhere or do i need to take a dictionary with me?

How good do they "speak" English. Well not that good if any at all. Japanese learn grammar, writing, etc but not enough listening or speaking skills. Many have forgotten from schooldays.

Of course it is entirely possible to get by with English, as the train stations, trains etc have signs and announcements in English and Japanese.

But it is always good to know some basic phrases and answers to simple questions.

IN the big cities you will find people that speak english. But no matter what, try to learn has many Japanese words as you can. (make a small "cheat sheet") And learn some polite phrases in Japanese. If speaking english, speak a little slowly with no slang.

Thank you so much, that really helped me! I will try my best to learn some phrases in the short time i have.
Which phrases do u think are most important? Something like ''Hello, my name is Tiffany! How are u?''
or are there typical phrases japanese adore?

I would think phrases like "How do I get to the...." and "Which train/ bus should I take to get to...." "How far is it to...." would be more useful than how to tell people your name, if you are going to Japan as a tourist.

I went to Japan last month and only brought a phrase book. I watched a TV show on crunchyroll about how to learn Japanese as well. I forgot what it was called, maybe NHK Japanese lessons.

Anyway, we got by with my basic Japanese and my phrase book. The only problem occurred when I tried to get a hanko but I wasn't heartbroken over that.

BRING A SUBWAY MAP by the way!!! You can get one on amazon.com or .co.uk for $1 or ��1! If we didn't bring one, we would've been hopelessly lost.

Japanese speak English fine, but they are either (1) scared to speak the wrong grammar, or (2) act like they don't know. It's their country so we (the non Japanese speaking people) can't really expect them to speak it if they don't want to. But I've have plenty of 'broken' conversations with older neighbors and it wasn't too much of a problem. But it is always handy to know a few phrases of course.