In this booster
Lesson 6 taught you to ask your way through transit — does this train go there, bus or subway, what time. This pack is the other half: the hardware. City transit in Japan is nearly wordless by design — a card you tap, gates that open, exits with numbers, a button on a bus pole — and most of what a visitor needs isn’t sentences but knowing how the machines expect to be touched. The Trains booster covers the intercity layer (the pass, reserved seats, the shinkansen); this one covers the trains you’ll actually ride twenty times a day.
No new grammar — every sentence here is a frame you already own, wearing new nouns, and there are deliberately few of them: Lesson 4’s doko pointed at new machinery, Lesson 1’s onegaishimasu, Lesson 6’s de. Boosters assume the finished core (Lessons 1–9); take them in any order.
As always: tap each sentence and listen first, repeat it aloud, then check yourself against the text and meaning that appear. Tap again to listen as often as you like.
The IC card
One rechargeable tap card runs the entire surface of Japanese daily life: every train and subway in every city, every bus, plus konbini registers, vending machines, and the coin lockers you met in the trains pack. The brands — Suica, Pasmo, ICOCA — are regional but fully interchangeable; get whichever the machine sells. Two ways in: any ticket machine (the tourist-oriented Welcome Suica skips the ¥500 deposit but expires in 28 days), or your phone’s wallet app — which works on any iPhone, but on most foreign Android phones it doesn’t (they lack the required chip), so Android travelers want the physical card.
Charging is cash: feed the machine, or hand coins and card across any konbini counter with two words —
chaaji — the top-up, English “charge” wearing its train-station outfit. The clerk will ask how much or just look at the bills in your hand; a thousand-yen note is the usual bite.
Suica de, onegaishimasu.
Lesson 6’s means-de, pointed at a register. Any brand name works — say the one printed on your card, or just IC kaado de — and then tap when the reader lights up.
IC kaado wa arimasu ka.
IC kaado — the card itself, generically. The airport station window sells them all day; this is the day-one purchase question.
Zandaka wa ikura desu ka.
zandaka — the balance. Mostly you read this word: it flashes on every gate reader as you pass (残高), which is how Japan reminds you to charge before the gate does it less politely — see the dialog.
The gate, the line, the exit
kaisatsu — the ticket gate, the tap-through row of paddles. Big stations have several, named by compass point; when you’re meeting someone, this word plus a gate name is the standard rendezvous.
Ginza-sen wa doko desu ka.
-sen — line, glued to any line’s name. Every line also has a color and a letter — the Ginza Line is orange and G — and every station on it a number (G09), painted everywhere. You never need to pronounce a station name correctly again: the letter-number code on your map app is on the wall too.
Kono deguchi wa doko desu ka.
Lesson 4’s deguchi plus Lesson 2’s kono, aimed at your own screen. Underground stations have exits by the dozen, numbered and lettered (Exit 6, Exit A3), and every address, map pin, and meeting plan is given by exit — so the asking move is the course’s oldest one: point at the code and let kono carry it. The answer will come back as a spoken exit number (roku-ban deguchi — it’s in the script below; catch the digit, match it overhead). And the trick that saves whole city blocks: pick your exit number while you’re still on the platform — the yellow signboards list what’s near each one — and surface already pointed the right way.
The bus
The bus is the one vehicle with its own choreography, and none of it is spoken: board by the rear door and tap your IC card on the way in; when your stop is announced, press the button on the pole; exit at the front, tapping again as you pass the driver (flat-fare cities like Tokyo flip this — front door in, one tap, done). No card? A machine by the driver changes coins. Lesson 6 already gave you the only question the bus ever needs — it’s worth re-hearing:
Pure review — Lesson 6, unchanged. Asked through the front door before boarding, it spares you the scenic tour.
Basutei wa doko desu ka.
basutei — the bus stop, a pole with a timetable and often a patient line. Same-named stops scatter across a big intersection by direction, so this question stays useful even when you can see a stop.
Dialog
A subway station, mid-morning. One directions question, one gate bounce. Listen to the whole dialog cold first.
Sumimasen. Ginza-sen wa doko desu ka. Kono saki, hidari desu. Doumo. Zandaka ga tarimasen ne. Achira no kikai de onegaishimasu. Hai, wakarimashita. Arigatou gozaimasu.Notice what the bounce costs: nothing. No fine, no forms, no apology owed — a short balance is routine, the attendant sees fifty a day, and the machine is always ten steps away. This is also the machine-redirect sentence from the Package Pickup booster doing its other job — one recognition item, working all over town.
What they’ll say to you
The platform announcements — next stop, doors closing, train approaching — are Lesson 6’s recognition script; re-drill them there. These five are the city’s remaining gaps, at native speed. You never say these — catch the keyword, comply.
Zandaka ga tarimasen ne. Mou ichido tacchi shite kudasai. Tsugi, tomarimasu. Kochira wa josei senyou sharyou desu. Roku-ban deguchi desu.How to behave: the platform ballet
- The card that taps in must tap out. Gates match your entry and exit; switching cards mid-journey, or tapping in and giving up, confuses the system — the window attendant fixes any of it in seconds, no fine, no drama. A short balance is the most routine event in Japanese transit; the dialog above is the entire ceremony.
- Women-only cars are real and clearly marked — pink signs on the platform floor and car doors, enforced during weekday rush hours (roughly 7–9:30 a.m.). Men who board by accident just step off at the next stop with a small nod. Outside those hours the car is ordinary.
- Rush hour has a costume: backpack worn on your front, phone silent, conversations at murmur level, and no phone calls at all. You already know the escalator rule from Lesson 6 — one side stands, and which side varies by city, so copy the person ahead of you.
- One city, several railways. Tokyo Metro, Toei, and JR are separate systems that share stations; a transfer sometimes means exiting one company’s gates and entering another’s — the orange transfer gates and signs manage it, and the IC card makes the fare math invisible. When in doubt, follow the line’s color and letter, not the company name. (And the last train comes earlier than your evening thinks it does.)
Vocabulary reference
| # | Romaji | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | IC kaado | IC transit card | one card: trains, buses, konbini, lockers |
| 2 | chaaji | top-up / charge | Chaaji, onegaishimasu. — cash only |
| 3 | zandaka | (card) balance | flashes on every gate reader |
| 4 | kaisatsu | ticket gate | the standard meeting point |
| 5 | -sen | line (suffix) | Ginza-sen — plus a color and a letter |
| 6 | basutei | bus stop | Basutei wa doko desu ka. |
Recognize only — never say these. The city’s remaining scripts (the platform announcements live in Lesson 6):
| Script line | It means | You do |
|---|---|---|
| Zandaka ga tarimasen ne. | balance short | charge machine, tap again |
| Mou ichido tacchi shite kudasai. | tap again | flat and slow |
| Tsugi, tomarimasu. | stopping next | to the front door |
| Kochira wa josei senyou sharyou desu. | women-only car | men: off at next stop |
| Roku-ban deguchi desu. | it’s Exit 6 | catch the digit, look up |
Anki deck
Drill this booster’s audio anywhere: download the Subway & City Transit Anki deck. Sentence cards are the course; vocab cards are backup — suspend them unless a word won’t stick.