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Signs in Japanese

After this free lesson, you’ll avoid potential embarrassment and frustration by understanding signs in Japanese! Knowing these useful Japanese words will ensure you’ll never walk into the wrong restroom, light up in a no-smoking area, or have your car towed from a no-parking spot.

Most of the time you’ll probably only need to recognize the written Japanese phrase, but we’ve included audio so you can listen to the Japanese pronunciation. This way you’ll be able to ask if something is open or closed, or more importantly, on sale!

Let's begin this free audio lesson on signs in Japanese!

Resources for further reading:

How to pronounce signs in Japanese

Practice Your Pronunciation With Rocket Record

Rocket Record lets you perfect your Japanese pronunciation. Just listen to the native speaker audio and then use the microphone icon to record yourself. Once you’re done, you’ll get a score out of 100 on your pronunciation and can listen to your own audio playback. (Use a headset mic for best results.) Problems? Click here!

女 / 女子

おんな / じょし

Onna / Joshi

Ladies

男 / 男子

おとこ / だんし

Otoko / Danshi

Gentleman

引く

ひく

Hiku

Pull

押す

おす

Osu

Push

開店 / 営業中

かいてん / えいぎょう ちゅう

Kaiten / Eigyō chū

Open

閉店

へいてん

Heiten

Closed

営業時間

えいぎょう じかん

Eigyō jikan

The opening hours

駐車禁止

ちゅうしゃ きんし

Chūsha kinshi

No parking

Japanes subway sign

When you buy food in a supermarket and don’t intend to eat it straight away it might pay to check the ‘best before date’ to avoid nasty surprises…

賞味期限

しょうみ きげん

Shōmi kigen

The best before date

…までにお召し上がり下さい

…まで に おめし あがり ください

…made ni omeshi agari kudasai

Best before...

Most restaurants have a smoking and a non-smoking area. There is a big discussion in Japan at the moment over whether to ban smoking in public buildings altogether. In the meantime it might be helpful to learn what “Kin-en” means.

喫煙席

きつえん せき

Kitsu-en seki

The smoking area

禁煙席

きんえん せき

Kin-en seki

The non-smoking area

禁煙

きんえん

Kin-en!

No smoking!

Japanese no smoking sign

Sometimes you will see big bright colored signs in nearly every store window. There must be a sale on…

値引き

ねびき

Nebiki

Discount

格安

かくやす

Kakuyasu

Reduced

バーゲン セール

バーゲン セール

Bāgen Sēru

The bargain

That’s it for this lesson. I hope you had fun!

For more lessons on Japanese vocabulary I recommend these!

Sayōnara!

Sayaka Matsuura: Rocket Japanese

Make It Stick With Rocket Reinforcement

Reinforce your learning from this lesson with the Rocket Reinforcement activities!