DCtrAAveler

Hi all. Wondering if someone could recommend an app or two that would help a first time visitor learn a little Japanese - key phrases, some vocab., etc.? I always like to know a little something of the language when I visit someplace new. I know about Rosetta Stone. Not looking for a full language course (perhaps down the road) right now, just a 'quick and dirty' so I can pick up a few basics. Thanks in advance for your advice. Cheers.

Chapel Hill Guy

While not cheap, I've found the Pimsleur language courses excellent (although I've not taken the Japanese one):

http://www.pimsleur.com/learn-japanese

InPlaneSight

Although not an app, here's a live, online Japanese school that I can highly recommend that may be able to help you out:

http://www.nihongo-pro.com

Hubbabridge

To be honest it is not really an app language. The State Department rates it as a level 3 (*) language which means it take 2200 hours to achieve general proficiency and is more difficult than Korean and Chinese. I would learn how to say please and thank you politely and be able to count using the native and chinese counting systems up to 5. In my experience any Japanese phrases are appreciated and have some phrases in japanese from the JNTO website.

Chapel Hill Guy

Did you read the OP's post? They don't want to master the language, they want to learn some general conversational phrases.

Pimsleur is great for this.

ksandness

Berlitz has a series of phrasebooks for various languages that come with audio. The advantage of the Berlitz books is that they have everything written out both phonetically and in the native script, so that people can point to what they need to say.

Pronunciation is important in Japanese, not because it's so hard to pronounce (it's actually quite easy), but because poor pronunciation will make Japanese people think that you're speaking some sort of English that they haven't learned.

Probably the hardest sound for English speakers is the Consonant+y combination, as in ryokan "traditional inn." It's not "ry-oh-kan" but ryo-kah-n. Similarly, Kyoto is not "Kee-yoh-toh" but "Kyo-o-to." (Pronounce the first syllable like "cue," only with an "oh" substituting for the "oo" sound.)

Pickles

Mrs. Pickles swears by Kotoba/imiwa? which can serve as a translation aid. As for learning a few phrases, etcetera, besides some simple greetings, forget it. Were you to use anything more complex with the natives, they'll respond back to you in Japanese, and then you're just a goner anyway.

Pickles

If one realizes that Japanese doesn't have individual consonants or vowels (except for "n"), but it's all using syllables (which means you have to sound out consonant-vowel pairs, not individual letters), it becomes a lot easier to pronounce without sounding like a dork.

joejones

I agree that there's not much point in trying to learn spoken Japanese unless you are really serious about it. There are few really fluent English speakers here, but pretty much everyone knows basic words and phrases in English.

The bigger hurdle for foreign visitors, IMO, is that you won't be able to read anything unless it was specifically translated into English. So one thing you might consider is trying to learn some Japanese characters, which is not as insane as it sounds.

If you can memorize most of the katakana (there are 46 of them, each representing a syllable), you will be able to phonetically read any foreign loanwords written in Japanese on menus, signs, etc. There are a bunch of websites and mobile apps that you can use for this purpose, e.g. http://quizlet.com/47772/katakana-practice-flash-cards/ I managed to cram all of the katakana over the course of a few days when I was taking Japanese in high school, using a combination of silly mnemonics and self-quizzing, but YMMV.

If you have enough of an attention span for it, you might want to also learn some basic Chinese characters. Even if you just memorize the English meanings of a few of them you will be surprised at how much text you can decipher in Japan. This is doubly helpful if you plan to visit China as the characters used there are very similar (sometimes identical). The first-grade reading list is a good start:
http://www.learn-japanese.info/firstgradekanji.html
I wouldn't bother to memorize the Japanese pronunciations, because (a) there are several for each character and the appropriate one depends on context, and (b) as a newbie you will probably not get the pronunciation right anyway.

abmj-jr

Pretty much what I use hiragana and katakana for is reading the little paper menu strips hanging over the counter at the corner restaurant. I can make out so-ba, ra-me-n, gyo-za, to-n-ka-tsu, ka-re, ka-tsu-do-n, bi-ru. What else do you need?

Seriously though, a familiarity with the kana characters can be learned in a few hours. Buy a little book and study it on the plane. You'll be surprised how much fun it can be trying to puzzle out little things along the way. Forget kanji. Nobody picks up a useful number of the kanji characters without some intense study. I know less than 2 dozen and that includes a bunch of numbers.

I used Pimsleur but for just learning a few phrases, I second the suggestion for the little Berlitz pocket books. Get the one with an audio disk or tape as pronunciation is important and don't try to go beyond the very basic phrases - thank you, excuse me, please, where is the bathroom, etc. The problem with going much further is, if you get it right they will then answer you in Japanese and you are screwed. It is easy to say a few things, it is hard to understand much of anything. That will take a little more work.

Another nice thing about the little pocket books is they often include a few cultural references and explanations to go with the translations.

Really, for a few days in the major areas like Tokyo and Kyoto, you will be fine. English is pretty common.

LapLap

Quick and dirty you say?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/japan...ainlessly.html

joejones

Agreed. Unless you are very serious about it, learning Japanese is more of a fun intellectual exercise than anything.

My favorite phrasebook in my beginner days was a tiny Boye de Mente piece called "Survival Japanese," which is likely out of print now.

Hubbabridge

Not withstanding the censorious tone I provoked, unwittingly; I don't think that an app is that helpful if you speak no Japanese. Being able to read Katakana is very useful and takes only a few hours to learn. Really as a tourist you need to order some food (probably the most difficult task) and buy a train ticket. Most ticket machines and JR staff in the ticket office, can carry out the transaction in English. Friends who do not speak any Japanese tell me food is the most difficult but if the menu has pictures you will have no difficulty. I first went to Japan in 1987 with no knowledge of the language and managed with the JNTO phrasebook and some mime. English language skills are much better now and my japanese is much improved but once you start to speak Japanese it is much harder to get people to switch to English.

Japanese Pod 101 survival phrases are good. 10 hours of tuition is much more useful than an app.

gnaget

Learning stuff from phrasebooks or apps is useless. It is hard to remember it when you don't understand the basics of the language.

It's also hard to learn katakana and hiragana if you are not actively using it. I am not learning kanji formally but have picked up several hundred just by observing.

One thing you can do is to use Japanese word order when you speak English or try to speak a sort of pidgin Japanese. Subject object verb. And if you don't know the verb then create one by XXXX-shimasu. This is done with borrowed verbs (a lot of "Chinese") verbs and examples like Kyanselu (cancel)-shimasu even there is a Japanese verb for cancel. One thing that you have to remember is that everyone in Japan supposedly studied English for 6 years in school. And the language has a lot of English loaner words.

But then the question is what use is it when they start rattling off in Japanese. They typically do not speak to you in simple terms or adjust their language.

Also if you deal with service industry people then they won't speak with words that you learn in a intro textbook because they use humble and honorific forms.

p.s. Imiwa is indeed a great ap. It's Iphone only though. For tourists a nice thing is that it does not need a data connection. It's a large file like around 500 MB. But it is more useful for people who have some proficiency.

DCtrAAveler

Thanks, all, for the suggestions and advice. I realize that I'm not going to master the language in a few short weeks, and as I said at the outset that's not my intent. Whenever I travel I like to know enough to say small things like please, thank you, where is..., hello/ god bye, etc. if the conversation/interaction reverts to English from there, that's fine, but I like to at least make an attempt at some basic phrases - I think it only polite. Cheers.