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Fuck it, I DO try Japanese. Everyday.

But you know what? If you are a cafe that wants business then you should try tolerating communication - whether it’s perfect or not.

You can see Kristen there melting in the background. But we wouldn’t go in here for a drink, all because of this sign.

The Japanese word for coffee is “コーヒー”. Derived right from the English. If your staff can’t handle the more native speaker pronunciation of that, then perhaps you shouldn’t be trying to run a business in Iidabashi, central Tokyo.

Because it shouldn’t matter what your customer speaks. As long as you can communicate the basics then you are all sorted. You serve beverage, customer drinks it and pays. Hardly rocket science.

Postscript: I met these guys (English OK) recently. Very genki boys and an interesting business.

• Perhaps they get the shits with the backpackers from the youth hostel in Iidabashi, hence the sign. No excuse really, though.

  nicole
  05/09/16 04:44 PM

• I wonder if what they would do if you tried Japanese on them? 

  That is an outrageous sign for a business catering to the general public..  English or Japanese I thought that money talks!!!!

  GG
  05/09/19 09:57 PM

• You’ve been living in Japan for ages, what’s your problem.  You must be able to speak it by now.  I’m pretty sure it was some of your videos I saw ages ago, telling other foreigners “Oh don’t worry about learning Japanese, here’s how to survive in Japan whilst being a lazy ignorant foreigner.”

  People get so mad at foriegners in western countries, “Oh those damn , they should at least have the decency to learn our language if they’re going to live here.”  But as soon as English-speakers go abroad they throw a hissy fit if everywhere doesn’t cater to their language.

  They do have an excuse, they’re a Japanese shop in a country where the only official language is Japanese.  Spanish and Chinese are spoken by nearly a quarter of the world’s population.  Maybe you should complain that all shops in English-speaking countries should speak Chinese and Spanish.  After all there’s no excuse.

  I can understand only learning the basic phrases of a country when you go abroad, but if you’re living there it’s just bloody-minded and ignorant to not learn that country’s language.
  Japanese really, really isn’t that hard if you actually put some effort in.

  Ben
  05/09/21 12:51 AM

• At least they were upfront about it. They anticipated the issue, which I agree is not with not being able to please the customer, but with their employees getting frustrated trying to communicate with non-Japanese speakers. And they tried to do something to prevent any occurence. Good on them! 
  As one other person commented, this IS Japan, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect people to speak the language. If you don’t, and it is an issue for you that a shop’s staff can’t speak English (and don’t really want to muck around trying), then you have been forewarned.
  I much prefer this to going into a shop and having the staff avoid me because they assume that I can’t speak Japanese. I remember speaking Japanese to a silly cow of a shop assistant who kept saying ‘eigo wakanai’, although I was speaking to her in Japanese (and my Japanese is good enough to fool Japanese on the telephone).
  Sorry, but your expectation that Japanese, in their own country, ought to make an effort to speak to you in English is unreasonable. You learning Japanese is reasonable.

  Nik
  05/09/23 08:03 AM