I was recently asked if it is better to move to the countryside in order to learn real Japanese. My answer was, "Wakaran!" ("I don't know!") I moved to a small island in the Seto Inland Sea in the hopes of attaining Japanese fluency. And, yes, it does work — with some caveats.
I made the move to the Japanese countryside after living in the city for four years. My urban memories include spending hours hanging out in front of JR ticket windows and eavesdropping on Japanese people buying their shinkansen tickets in the quest to learn how to properly buy one myself. My loitering habits taught me to ask for a ticket according to the train name and number (not the train time), my destination, whether I wanted a reserved or non-reserved seat and, if the former, specifying which seat I preferred: mado-gawa (window) or tsūro-gawa (aisle).
As if that's not enough to remember, you can tack on to the end of your request whether you're buying a katamichi kippu (one-way) or ōfuku kippu (round-trip ticket). Only advanced Japanese speakers will remember to ask for the "no announcements" car.
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