Japanese Pharmacy Phrases You Actually Need at the Counter

The essential Japanese pharmacy phrases are few: 処方箋 (shohosen) is your prescription, 調剤薬局 (chozai yakkyoku) is the dispensing pharmacy that fills it, and お薬手帳 (okusuri techo) is the medication notebook a pharmacist logs it in. To ask for a generic, say jenerikku wa arimasu ka (ジェネリックはありますか), "is there a generic?" To state an allergy, name the substance and add arerugii ga arimasu (アレルギーがあります), "I have an allergy to ___." Pair these with the symptom words below and you can get through a routine pharmacy visit without needing fluent Japanese.

Start with the Japanese for prescription and the small set of words orbiting it - what you'll see on signage, and what the person behind the counter is actually called.

Keep the okusuri techo with you rather than treating it as paperwork - it's genuinely useful for catching interactions across different clinics, and a pharmacist will ask for it by name.

Say jenerikku wa arimasu ka (ジェネリックはありますか) - "is there a generic?" - and most pharmacists will check without hesitation; substitution is common practice in Japan. If pronouncing it feels risky, write it down instead: ジェネリック医薬品でお願いします (jenerikku iyakuhin de onegaishimasu), "the generic version, please." For how generics actually work here - pricing, availability, what counts as equivalent - see generic drugs in Japan.

To flag an allergy, state the substance and add arerugii ga arimasu (アレルギーがあります) - "I have an allergy to ___." For a drug allergy generally, rather than one specific substance, say 薬アレルギーがあります (kusuri arerugii ga arimasu), "I have a drug allergy," and let the pharmacist ask follow-up questions rather than trying to explain the reaction yourself. Pair that with a symptom word so they know what you're actually there for.

If you're picking something up over the counter rather than filling a shohosen, buying OTC medicine in Japan covers how the risk classes and counter process work.

None of this replaces real interpretation for anything complicated. The health guide covers how prescribing and dispensing actually work if you want the fuller system behind these words, and the moving to Japan guide covers insurance and registration if you're setting up healthcare from scratch. If a pharmacy tells you something is out of stock rather than misunderstanding your Japanese, see medicine shortages in Japan for what's actually happening industry-wide.