Quote Originally Posted by GaijinPunch
What about finding a specific electrical part?
If you need something specific, it's very easy to check it first in a dictionary. That's just one word (or a few) to remember. Not a big deal, even for the least linguistically able person (people who can't do that shouldn't decide to live in another country in the firts place).

Calling a locksmith when they get locked out of their house?
And what if a tree fell on my house during a typhoon ? I have never been locked out of my house and neither do I know someone (close to me) who has. These are extremenly rare situations (I have never had to deal with a locksmith in my all life in any country). If it happens, it wouldn't be a big deal to ask a local friend for help, or again resort to an electronic dictionary (which you should always have on you if you live in a country where you don't speak the language, until you get reasonably fluent).

Finding out the ingredients of the food they buy?
Never had any problem with that. Just go to the supermarket and see by yourself what you need. If you need to read to name tag to know that a cabbage is a cabbage or a carton of milk is a carton of milk, then it is better to safely stay in your home country. My sister stayed one month in Japan this summer. She doesn't know a word of Japanese, but didn't have any problem to buy even Japanese ingredients. She could recognise the various kinds of sauces (bulldog, soy sauce, etc.) or guess from the image that one puding was "pumpkin" taste, while another was "mango". Even a child could do that.

Getting mustard on their french fries instead of catchup, or even ketsup for that matter?
Not sure what you mean. It's impossible to confuse in a supermarket (ketchup is red, FYI). In a McDonald or something, either ask (the Japanese words are the same : "masutaado" and "ketchappu") or see by yourself the colour of the package. What's more, most kinds of food having labelling in romaji - sometimes also in English. There are just so many imported products in Japanese supermarket. There is even Belgian jam (Materne) and chocolate (Cote d'Or), or French mustard and spices at my local supermarket, which isn't specialised in imports at all like Meiji-ya or Seijoishii !

A few more things you can now get in English in Japan (some were difficult a few years ago) : bilingual mobile phone, bilingual ATM, PC with keyboard and Windows in English (e.g. from a Dospara/Prime PC store nationwide or directly online), legal service in English (just check in JREF's directory), English-speaking emergency services (police, ambulance, medical information, foreign residents advisory, etc.), etc. I am sure that many people don't know about them (they might not know JREF), but they do exist. I have done a lot of research to gather information for this website, and done the same for Belgium. I can tell you that Japan has much more services, signs, etc. in English than cosmopolitan and multicultural Belgium. Apart from mobile phones that have dozens of languages so that the same model can be sold Europe-wide, and ATM's that usually have several languages, most of these things are not so easy to find in Belgium. You might be looking for the airport and not find the sign on the road because it's only written "luchthaven" in Dutch. That doesn't happen in Japan.

I also thing your disagreement about Japan being English-friendly are based on 2 things : 1) you confuse English-friendly with 'equal in convenience to an English-speaking country.', and 2) you forget that this is a compared to other countries in the world, not what you'd personally wish to find.