As far from what I know (I study in Japan in a non-technical English language program) people do have been able to work and live in Japan without knowing Japane

As far from what I know (I study in Japan in a non-technical English language program) people do have been able to work and live in Japan without knowing Japanese at all, especially with Google Translate coming. However! It's quite hard to deal with the bureaucracy if you stick with GTranslate only. But for other purposes, it's very fine. The Japanese themselves are not into small talks so...