Oh OUCH! My Japanese was enough to be polite, carry me to food and to catch the right train. I could also conduct a very good inventory as long as it was all numbers... ha ha
One of the fun things happened when I was in Penang , Malaysia. I earned a company paid R&R at a high dollar hotel with an excellent Japanese restaurant. I entered and you could tell that the greeter was Japanese/Malay mix. He greeted me in Japanese and we exchanged bows, then in Japanese I asked him (basically) how he was doing today?
His eyes got BIG, then he looked both ways and leaned closer to me and whispered: "I don't really speak Japanese!" ha ha I assured him that his secret was safe with me. Of course, like most Malaysians, he probably spoke Malay, at least one Chinese dialect, English and maybe some Dyak, so I was the lingo-slacker in that room.
Languages are fun.
>Ray
Ps. Most Sushi Zan here are owned either by Koreans or Chinese. I haven't seen a Japanese owned one since California and so no way to practice.