petina wrote:

QUOTE:
And/or what businesses or service or company have you already used in English that you found useful??

In Japan? If so then I would have to say the English options that were provided when buying Tickets from the automated machines at Train Stations and Metro Stations. Generally the staff were also accomodating when trying to get tickets for the Shinkansen. Anywhere I stayed the staff were also accomodating when speaking to foreigners in English.

I have heard much about how applying for Bank accounts or general administration in Japan can be hard (if you do not have the relevant knowledge of Japanese Language)& rightly so I guess. So Hypothetically I think having an option of dealing with Administrative or Bank matters in English would be good. Even just an idea off the top of my head is a machine or computer that could provide all the application details in English, print them off in Japanese and you could provide said documents and also other related documents needed along with them (example proof of address in Japan, Wage Slips etc) and then the documents would then obviously be reviewed by the staff in the bank.

Last bit was a bit of a blabbing with no real forward thought on but thought in hindsight it could be a somewhat good compromise for those wishing to deal with said matters with little knowledge of the language.