Not learning Korean, not planning on learning Korean but Korea is a really cool place I’d love to visit. Then a thought struck me this morning, how far does a bit of basic conversational Japanese go when in Korea?
Has anyone here experienced travelling in Korea with zero Korean and some Japanese?
At worst, you could be seen as extremely racist for it.
At best, people are likely to be very confused as to why you’re bothering.
In any case, your English will get you a lot further than Japanese, especially if you learn some very basic Korean phrases - your hellos, thank yous, excuse mes.
Korea and Japan have a very troubled relationship with Japan having colonized Korea. During their colonization, Japan did some truly horrible things to Koreans, including sending their children to work as s*x slaves for their army.
I would recommend looking into the history of Japan’s interactions with Korea, and definitely would not recommend walking around Korea speaking Japanese. Although, I’ve never personally been to Korea, so what do I know? Just seems like a bad idea to me.
Yeah I know about the two countries history.
Modern day attitude to speaking Japanese in Korea… this is probably the wrong audience to ask.
History aside, it likely will just come off as ignorant. Unless you go there with Japanese people, and speak Japanese to them, of course. But going and using Japanese with shop staff, random people you meet etc., and not as a native Japanese speaker? It’s gonna get you some funny looks, at the very least.
I’d just save your Japanese for when you visit Japan itself.
yessssss! i’ve being to korea once for 21 days and at that time i did not know any korean AT ALL! i just got by using most english of course but i talked to some of them using basic japanese and they understood without any issues, i was quite surprised that most of koreans understand japanese, you don’t need to know 100% korean to be able to communicate there, if you know english and japanese you can pretty much book a trip to korea 
well at least that was my case.
You’re better off learning some basic Korean words. Or speak English to them, as they’re more likely to speak English than Japanese.
I’ve lived in Japan for 12 years, and I lived in Korea for three. My advice would be to NOT speak Japanese in Korea if you can possibly avoid it!
I once did. I was in Japan, flew over to Seoul for a daytrip to see friends, and as soon as I got to City Hall I popped into a convenience store for a drink. Then, at the till, I automatically said ありがとうございます.
The silence in response was deafening, and I was left wishing the ground would open up and swallow me!
I thought that as I have experienced Japanese people learning Korean and vice versa, it might be another useful tool alongside English and tourist phrase book Korean.
So it might fall somewhere between ok and completely horrifying them. Good to know.
EDIT: strugging with English grammar!
maybe 2 out of my 12+ korean friends can speak japanese, one studied for long time in school and lived together with japanese people, the other one is a language genius who can also converse in mandarin and learnt b2 level german in a year. except for these two, almost all of them find it very irritating when I assume that they must know at least a bit japanese.
Don’t do it, most korean people I’ve met think highly of the english language and like talking in english. Why not being likeable instead of an annoyance to them?
(in the sense of don’t consume but enrich the other person’s experience)
Maybe what the op meant was more along the lines of, would Japanese, alongside English, be of any use in Korea for someone who speaks no Korean at all? There’s of course a long and complicated history between both countries, and I don’t think the op suggested using Japanese as a replacement for Korean. It’s good to point out, however, that Japanese is sometimes reported as the second most common foreign language in South Korea and so, in a situation where English wouldn’t suffice, perhaps Japanese could help to some extent.
When I lived in Japan and visited Korea I sometimes spoke Japanese by accident, because my brain defaults to it when in a place where I don’t know the language. Have done the same in Thailand. It’s either not understood or if it is, kind of offensive/amusing.
Later I moved to Korea to teach English and have been told I speak Korean with a Japanese accent, which is 90% amusing, 10% kind of offensive to people. It’s hard to switch my brain to read hangul the Korean way rather than the hiragana way. My Korean accent is woeful. Like I was telling the taxi driver I wanted to go to Makudonarudosu the Japanese way of saying McDonalds, and he was like, WTF? Eventually, oooh… Maegdonaldeu. Me: why can’t I speak to people here 
Though they speak waaaaay better English in Korea than in Japan. The first time I went, I got out of the airport and seeking noms and unsure of what foods existed there or how to buy them, went to the most familiar place I could see, Mr Donut. I walked in and the cashier said, “Hi, how can I help you?” in English, and I just gaped at her and didn’t know how to respond. No one had spoken English to me at a counter in like two years at that point. So I am trying to stop my brain from replying in Japanese but also didn’t really know what to say so I just sort of froze up while she looked at me like I was some kind of crazy person. It took me by surprise. In Seoul, lots of people will just speak to you in English.
To answer your question, it’s not really useful, no. If you visit China it will help you read signs on doors though!
hey guys, anyone tried travelling around portugal using german?
A lot of people do speak some Japanese, especially in tourist areas. However, given the history, if I was you I would first speak English, and then if they can’t communicate try to use Japanese.
The ideal of course is to learn a bit of Korean.
If I failed that, I’d try English (they speak waaay better English than the Japanese do).
Then I’d learn how to say “I don’t speak Korean, sorry” in Korean, so I could drop a 「日本語は？」 afterwards.
It is true that a surprising amount of Korean people can speak Japanese tho, in my experience.
I don’t have any insight on a personal level since I’ve never been to Korea, and most of my interactions with Korean people were in Japanese study groups and language classes in Japan.
Although an American friend of mine once told me that he visited Korea and went into a shop, and the Korean shop keeper greeted him in Japanese. Maybe the area he was in had a concentrated number of foreigners who spoke Japanese, who knows. I just thought it was amusing.
I honestly dont know. I know you can do it in Cambodia. Because, I am very shy, and when a shop tote comes at me in another country I often say I can’t speak English and speak in Japanese. In Cambodia people were like “Oh, Japanese, no problem”. Japanese to avoid talking worked in Manila, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore etc etc but not Cambodia.
You can use Japanese in Taiwan a lot too. A lot of older Taiwanese people know Japanese but not English. Younger people know english but not Japanese.
Anecdotally, when I lived in New York my favorite bodega was owned by a Korean family and the oldest guy didn’t speak English but he spoke enough Japanese that we became friends. He passed away from Cancer before I left and his family really appreciated when I inquired about him. He was a good dude.