Funny enough, I once ordered some noodles and then couldn’t figure out how to eat them with chopsticks without slurping, which in the west is considered rude, so I ended up trying to eat them with a ladel. The Japanese Businessmen next to me gave me some odd looks for doing that. Ends up you’re supposed to slurp in…

really?! Uni is on decent sushi restaurant’s menu here in the states. I mean, I hate it, but other people go crazy over it. I’ve never been to japan but I can’t imagine they’d be giving you looks like that because you were eating Uni, because it’s a pretty Japanese thing as far as I’m aware.

“In Japan, sea urchin…

Mainland Chinese tourists usually like to pretend they don’t know what’s going on so they get away with more things. Saw this a lot in Taiwan, even though they can read and speak the language, and saw this a lot in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

According to my friend who got her masters in linguistics English is easy to gain proficiency, but very hard to gain fluency. From what I remember, someone only needs to a very small number of words in english to be able to function in everyday life. The problem comes from how large the english vocabulary actually is.…

English is actually considered one of the most difficult languages to learn for people whose native tongue is not a Germanic language. (German, Dutch, modern Scandinavian languages, Icelandic...)

The reason is that English has borrowed so heavily from other languages that it is a mix match of parts from all over the…

Funny thing. Most of the souvenirs in those British souvenir shops I mentioned are made in China *facepalm*

'Muricans: "You're in America, SPEAK ENGLISH!"
'Muricans in Japan: "Why don't they speak any English?"

I agree completely, if you're planning a trip to another country that speaks a different language why on Earth would you not at least try to learn some or carry a translation book. Make the attempt.

Who is forcing you to learn Spanish? Schools? Most schools offer multiple language choices.

The whole "they came to my country" thing doesn't work with a country which is made up of a vast multitude of people and cultures and celebrates that melting pot of people, as they should its a great thing.

Most countries do…

Well, there's too sides to it. On one hand, tourism is a huge business. It's foreign people bringing their money from other countries to you. Catering to their needs is healthy for any economy. There's very much a reason for japanese to take care of the tourists.

London and basically any area with a coastline.

to be fair you can walk in to just about any store and 80% of whats for sale would count as a souvenir, if its little keychains and tshirts and figures they want, sky tree has got you covered and then some, same for tokyo disney.

London is packed with souvenir shops because it is such a hot tourist destination.

No duh people don't speak English there. Maybe because it's Japan? You're responsible for making yourself understood when you go to another country. You wouldn't just leave your kids at a neighbor's house, but that's essentially what you're doing when you go to another country and expect people to take care of you…

Canadian here. About 90% of the time, I don't have cash on me. I always have my credit and debit card on me, so I can make purchases 99% of the places that I go. But this is a good thing to note if I ever plan on traveling to Europe (which I really hope I can do soon) or Asia.

That and some banks don't charge a fee for the currency exchange if you just use your card. But if you go somewhere to do a currency exchange to get cash, your going to take a hard hit in fee's.

Even Canada, where I lived for a little while, uses debit cards far more than in the states, not just Europe. Two decades or so ago, when I got my first debit/credit card we used to have charges and fees associated with debit transactions. That probably scarred many of us from using debit by default.

The 'few places accept credit cards' is something I have heard from many Americans here in Europe as well. I suppose using debit or credit cards for payment is just far more widespread in the Anglo-American parts of the world.

Rush Hour 2: Nobody understands the words that are coming outta your mouth!

I found it useful, thanks Bash I thought it was pronounced Dah-koh myself so don't let the language snobs get you down. Just because some of use are dumb Americans (that lie and say we are Canadians sometimes) does not mean that dumbing it down is not helpful.