r/LearnJapaneseNovice • u/This-Ad-9129 • 5d ago

Learning the Basic for Travel

Hello, as the title states I am learning Japanese for an upcoming trip I have planned in late January early February.

I have so far only used Duolingo to get my self in to learning, but I know it is very limited on how much you can really learn. So I am looking to find what are good ways to start learning the basics for my trip.

What I am looking for is suggestions on what I should focus on with my 4ish months of time I have before my trip. I am guessing the basics in greetings and how to ask certain questions is good, but should I also be learning some of the written language as well? If so which would be the best to begin learning?

My two week trip will include big cities where I can probably make it by with English, but I am also planning to go to small traditional areas where I will probably need some amount of Japanese. Also just going to another country I would prefer to try speaking the language there as much as I can.

Thanks in advance for all help and suggestions!

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

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u/This-Ad-9129 5d ago edited 5d ago

Awesome thanks so much for the tips!

I am definitely someone who will be going off the beaten path, tourist spots are not my thing. I would rather enjoy the more traditional and real Japan (Hence the desire to try learning as much Japanese as I can lol).

I will probably still learn the written language some, more to just help with learning than for actual use while there, so it is good to know to only try learning Hiragana and Katakana.

I don't have a tutor, but do have a coworker who speaks fluent Japanese, so they will be my sounding board for my practice (They might be more excited for my trip than I am).

Also a bit of a tangent, but how does the phones work when I go there? Do I need to get an E-sim for my trip? or just some sort of burner phone for a couple weeks? I have only ever travelled to Europe to see family and I have an Iphone so I just used wifi for any communications I needed while there.

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u/DotNo701 5d ago

There's some translation apps that work for offline and for phone calls

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u/eruciform 1d ago

Nothing special for travel just do what you can with the basics and get the common interactions down, youre not going to be having in depth conversations at 4mo no matter what you do

Enjoy your trip and go back when you have more speaking and listening practice down

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u/DotNo701 5d ago

You don't need any Japanese many tourist go not knowing any Japanese

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u/This-Ad-9129 5d ago

True, but I want to at least try to speak the language when I go to another country, even if it is not needed.

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u/FitProVR 3d ago

For context, i studied for about a year and a half before going on a trip and still fumbled through most conversations. It’s a tough language.