Google Maps - Text and Voice in what language

I have only used Google Maps in English-speaking countries. How does the app work in Japan? Does the screen show Japanese characters for street names and places, especially outside big cities? When navigating, what does the voice say for street names and highways where they are no romanized letters? Thanks.

You can have a look at google maps for yourself. You don’t need to be in Japan to see google maps of Japan.

Regarding the voice, if you keep the setting in English the voice will try to pronounce the Japanese . Which well, if you know Japanese the pronunciation will be off. But if you don’t know Japanese it probably sounds similar to how you would pronounce the name by just reading it.
You can try this out now as well.

Note that street names aren’t very common in Japan. Some streets do have names. But the majority don’t. Instead a neighborhood has a name and then each small block has a number and each house within that block an other number.

Thank you LikeBike. I had a look at Google Maps, around Lake Biwa as an example. I see some destinations and and the instruction text are entirely in Japanese script. So I can't rely on voice instruction when driving as I wouldn't know what the place name might/ is supposed to sound like.

Do hired cars in Japan generally have Apple Carplay built in? I could then look at a screen.

Hi Judith,

If you're looking at Google Map on a computer, for example, there is a "three-bar" mark at the upper left. Click it, and you'll see "Language" at the lower part of the row where you can select from almost any major language in the world.

So, can everything be indicated in English? Yes, mostly (to be precise, it would be in English and Japanese, which is very convenient). But if you zoom in, you'd see more names of smaller buildings in Japanese that are not indicated in English.

In short, you can pretty much navigate yourself in English language, and if you want to get a closer look, you perhaps should drag the tiny person icon so that you could switch to Google Street View and see the shapes of buildings yourself rather than to rely on their names.

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with smartphone apps, though.

Note that, while in Japan, you are encouraged to switch off the sound of your mobile device when riding trains and buses. You are also encouraged not to walk while looking into your mobile device. Foreign visitors have been accidentally smashing into blind people and moving buses. Thank you for preparing before you start walking and being sure you're watching where you're going.