How can I use English to communicate in Japan?

Main idea first

Using English with non-native speakers has its own general rules to follow, but I have found some decent techniques when needing to be understood in English in Japan. Japanese is a subject-initial language like English, but in many cases, the object of English could very easily be the subject in Japanese. For example: I want to ride the train. Here, train is the object clearly. However in Japanese, one could very naturally change the object to the sentence-initial position, changing the sentence to: Train, I want to ride. Despite the train being the object, and not technically the subject, we can safely say that the most important word in the sentence is train. Using this structure of blatantly stating the most important topic word of the sentence, followed by details increases your chance of being understood greatly.
Ramen shop, where is it?
Bus station, I need..

by KurtisW

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