I am planning on taking some japanese lessons from a friend who can speak japanese but is not a japanese teacher/tutor per se (so is pretty flexible as to what I want to learn). Probably will amount to 10-12 hourlong lessons or so. This is in preparation for my monthlong trip to Japan. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about topics we should be sure to cover (e.g. greetings, money, directions), and should we bother with hiragana, katakana, kanji reading, etc? I do want the focus to be on conversational tourist-focused japanese though. Should I supplement with a workbook or audio lessons and which ones? (I will for sure purchase a phrasebook for my trip too - thinking of the Berlitz one, any recs?)

If the person is not a teacher or tutor, you should absolutely get a textbook that is intended for people learning Japanese. Without it, your friend's lessons will be completely unstructured. Also, by having a written text, you can review and reinforce the lesson later.

One textbook I can recommend is <i>Japanese for Busy People</i>, published by the Association for Japanese-Language Teaching.

p.s. to OP: your ID tells me that you've already mastered 2 especially important vocabulary words.

ha- of course I have! probably 2 of the most important for my purposes anyway

Thanks for the rec. Do you recommend the romanized version or the kana version? Unfortunately I don't see myself having the time to learn Japanese seriously after my trip next spring/summer so I'm not sure if the kana version will be too overwhelming, but at the same time it would be nice to have a basic understanding of things so I might have a chance at reading/interpreting some signs.

I would highly recommend a small paperback called 'The Practical Guide to Japanese Signs' by T. Moriyama - Part 1. It's out of print but available on amazon. This book covers the Kanji needed to read signs in many public places and gives you the derivation of the Kanji.There is also a second book but that is more for people living there. Even though there is a lot of English signage it is great to be able to understand the Japanese as well...
Enjoy!

I would also suggest a book, as conversational japanese is actually quite different from what you will want in Japan. You need what I call tourist Japanese. You want to be able to ask very simple questions, (where, when , how much, and what is) and understand simple answers (two blocks ahead then left, the train is on platform 5).

I find that in conversation, the focus is saying it RIGHT, and saying things nicely, when what you need to learn is how to say it SIMPLE.

"Where is train station, please"; not:" Can you kindly tell me how to find the kyoto train station?"
"Bus here? Time?"
"Water, please"; not "Could you please bring me a cup of water"
" Kyoto tickets.Tomorrow. Three o'clock. Two. please".
"Double room. two nights? How much?" Can I see? Dinner included?"

This kind of simple Japanese alerts the person on the receiving end that you know only basic Japanese and will tip them to answer you in similar terms.

I would take the time to learn the different ways of counting..money vs flat things vs people, etc., and if you are good at memorizing, I think hiragana can be useful to read, Katakana fun for sounding things out, Kanji (other than a few basics, like entrance, men and women)is not so useful considering the effort to learn.

A few converstaional phrases like where do you live, what do you do, etc are good once you learn the basics. i guess it depends on how fast you learn!

Good luck!

Try this website to practice some Japanese before your trip. There are podcasts in learning basic Japanese expressions (also many other languages). Click on Foreign Language Lessons.

www.oculture.com

Good advice from lcuy - I always learn the important question first - where is the toilet? Toire wa doko desuka?

ya,,, Lcuy is correcto... and, just recognize a few characters... .like Exit sign, etc etc.

have fun, and smile
people assist you... if you have goodwill...

be NOT too much of me, me me... in asia..
if you can see that in your shadow or
wish to control it.... maturity helps.

k

I forgot to recommend this, right here on Fodor's:

http://www.fodors.com/language/japanese/

their choice of phrases is excellent, and the print out guide is also very handy.

thank you all so much for your helpful input!

lcuy- do you have a rec for a textbook for good tourist japanese? or do you think the Fodor's page you suggested is decent enough, if I practice pronounciation with my tutor?

Mara- thanks for the book rec- i'll look into this!

citywalks- I'll check out that website. I've also heard about japanesepod101.com - have you tried this one? It seems to have some podcasts too...

passionSpirit- i'll definitely keep my attitude in check while travelling! I've heard Japanese are some of the kindest people around, so hopefully that can help fill in the void!

I think if you memorize all the fodor's lessons, you will be very well equipped to get around in Japan. I have a little point and show book of Japanese that's pretty good for more detailed converstations (It includes phrases for going to the hospital, asking about antiques, etc. ) If I remeber, i'll post the name here later.

unitoro - my basic membership to japanesepod101.com just lapsed actually. You can get a lot of free info on their website as well as on facebook if you belong there.

As others have said, most Japanese got out of their way to try to assist. It is better sometimes to show them something written down - such as a map - they seem to be better with written English than spoken English.....

I took a language course before my first trip to Japan. It used the <i>Japanese for Busy People</i> book.

It is very important to get the pronunciation correct, so you need something with audio and starting with pronouncing the syllabary. I didn't bother with reading and writing.