Originally Posted by
IberianAlex
In SK the English proficiency is very good, especially for East Asia. in most situations if you were pressed you'd be able to find someone who could help you out in a problem/question you couldn't explain, you know. Although, it depends on who you are speaking to and where you're at, obviously most English speakers will be in the bigger cities (Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Daegu, etc). The older generation doesn't speak English at all though, but generally SK has more of an American influence and a lot of people go overseas for uni and you can tell.
Japan is a different story, there just isn't really a reason to learn English for a majority of Japanese people. English ability is more of a prestige mark or an occasionally useful oddity but 95% unnecessary for regular joes, you should be fine with popular tourism sites and some planning. Most large cities have signage in Japanese and English/Romaji, and tourist sites will have signage in English as well. All train stations (I think) have English/Romaji signage at least to say what station it is, and many have English translations on ticket machines and trains that announce stops in English.
I wouldn't count on people being able to speak English, but many service industry people, especially in places that foreigners hang around and are pretty helpful with hand signals, etc. If you go some place like Sensoji in Tokyo, there's probably a few dozen restaurants in that area that have signage saying "We have English menus", for example.
There's some more out of the way tourist places or bars/restaurants that don't have outward English signage where I wouldn't expect people to be able to speak English or to help you out a lot, and that could be a problem. Of course, knowing some Japanese beforehand will make transactions easier, and might lead to a more interesting cultural experience!
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