{"id":4367,"date":"2020-09-25T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-24T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vhbloglive.wpengine.com\/?p=4367"},"modified":"2020-09-20T13:00:46","modified_gmt":"2020-09-20T04:00:46","slug":"japanese-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/japanese-apartment-life\/japanese-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Living in a new\ncountry can bring many changes to everyday life. Learning to read and\nunderstand the signs in your new country will be essential. Check out our\narticle to see some Japanese signs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving to a new\ncountry can be a great experience that will enrich a persons life. You will\nencounter new people, cultures, and everyday life. You will need to adjust how\nyou view the basic day to day workings of society and how to perceive the way\nyou should move about the country. One of the main ways you will do this is the\nlearn how signs work in Japan. Japanese signs are close to western ones and can\ngenerally mean the same thing, but there are noticeable differences that will\nrequire you to learn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are\ndifferent types of signs for different parts of life. Japanese signs can be\nconfusing at times while also being very easy to translate. Signs that have\npictures on them are the easiest to decipher and can help you in a pinch. Other\nsigns may be simple colors or shapes that will have different meanings\ndepending on their positioning. We will look at different kinds of signs for\ndifferent aspects of life in Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Road Signs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Road signs in\nJapan will be some of the most obvious when looking at their differences.\nJapanese signs for driving can be easily read by westerners as they rarely have\nany writing on them. The signs will have a different meaning when looking at\nthe shapes and coloring. Signs like no entry, road closed, and no vehicles of a\ncertain type are easy to understand. They all have the classic red stripe going\nthrough, or behind, the picture of the vehicle. The sign that may be hard to\nunderstand is the one that means,\u2019Closed to all vehicles except motorcycles.\u2019\nIt is the same design as no vehicles but has a car decal in the middle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Japanese signs\nfor passing are easy to understand as it has the arrow on the sign allowing or\ndenying passing. This is the same for no crossing signs. Parking signs are\ndifferent in they do not have a large letter P with a red stripe through it,\nand only have a blue sign with a single red line through it. If you see the\nsame sign that has an X going through it, that means no stopping or parking.\nMake sure to follow these closely are you may get fined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Speed limit signs\nare white, with blue numbers, and red circular outlines. These are easy to find\nand follow. They also have a width limit to go along with height and weight\nlimit signs. The only signs you may see with kanji on them are the stop signs.\nThe sign is an upside-down red triangle that has the kanji for \u2018tomare,\u2019 or\nstop. You can confuse them with a slow down sign if you don\u2019t look at the main\ncolors of the two. The \u2018slow down\u2019 sign will have a white background color with\nblue writing. All warning signs mimic most of the western versions of the same\nkind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All signs that\npertain to driving and road functions can be found on the national website that\nhas everything translated into English. You should study them to ensure your\ndriving experience will be smooth and accident-free. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Train Station Signs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you are\nplanning to live or visit one of the big cities in Japan you will have to use\npublic transportation at some point. There are signs and images you will need\nto understand to navigate the stations easily. Luckily most signs will have an\nEnglish translation on them to help visitors get through to the correct line.\nYou can see arrows and colors on the floor in some stations and the names are\nwritten on signs that decorate the walls and hanging signs. They are usually\ncolor-coded and have a shortened version of the line name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you get to\nyour platform you will see many different signs on the ground and hanging from\nthe ceiling. Most stations will have electronic tickers that show the current\nscheduled train arrivals and what kind of train will come. Pay attention to the\nwriting on the left side of the ticker to see if the local, express, or\nsemi-express is coming next. You can find timetables for each line on the\nplatform as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some signs have\nno writing and are simple colors laid out on the platform. The long yellow line\non the ground near the platform edge is \nwhere you should stand. It keeps people from getting too close to the\ntrains and cuts down on accidents. There are usually signs on the ground near\nthe edges that detail what lines you should stand in to get on specific trains.\nThese will usually be written in kanji and can be very confusing for\nnon-natives. There are signs that detail where the car doors will be when the\ntrains stop, and are indicated by shapes such as circles and triangles. Japan\nalso has women-only cars that go into effect at certain times in the morning\nand in the evening. It is meant to cut down on molesters and unwanted attacks\non women during the busy morning rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Try your best to\nread the signs so you can get to your correct train on time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Warning Signs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Warning signs\nserve the same purpose as in any country that has construction going on. There\nare many signs that will be universal, or extremely easy to understand. The\nsigns with a bowing construction worker is meant to draw your attention to\nwhatever is being worked on. Simply follow the workers cues. The signs that say\n\u2018abunai\u2019 in Japanese can be difficult to understand. It means caution or danger\nand should be heeded whenever you see it. Other signs of this sort are\nstraightforward and can be understood by simply looking at the figures on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Japanese signs\ncan sometimes be hard to understand, especially when they only display kanji.\nMost other signs can be easily discerned thanks to them being so similar to\nwestern signs. You should take your time to familiarize yourself with their appearance\nand meaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Living in a new country can bring many changes to everyday life. Learning to read and understand the signs in your new country will be essential. Check out our article to see some Japanese signs. Moving to a new country can be a great experience that will enrich a persons life. You will encounter new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japanese-apartment-life"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.villagehouse.jp\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}