Practical Japanese Phrases for the Train Station

Video Transcript

"Taking trains is probably the most popular transportation in Japan, so I will give you some useful words when you're taking trains. Okay, the first one is something-iki. "Iki" means, well its basic word is "to go," but in this sentence, "it goes to," so maybe it's translated to "bound to." OK, let's say you are at the station and I don't know if you're going to the north or south, but probably the north has a "Tokyo iki" and south probably says "Fukuoka iki." So, now you know. If you're going to Kyushu, now you know it's a southbound. That's how you use it: something-iki. And these two are the train speed. "Kakutei" means "local" - it stops every station. And "kyukou" means "express." And nowadays, especially in big cities like Toyko, Osaka, they have a kakusei, like semi-express. It's super express. There are so many, but these two, you would see everywhere. If it says "kakutei," it takes a long time but it stops everywhere. It's kyukyo, it's fast, but it might skip your train station so you want to be careful. And the last one is "norikae." It means "transfer." So if you ask for the direction at the station, people might tell you you have to norikae at this station to the other train, so please remember this word. "Norikae" means "to transfer." And you can usually - they usually have the ticket vending machine and they have some English menus, so I hope you're going to be OK."