You can also stop at the Koban (police box) there are usually large maps outside the koban of the area, also you can probably pop inside and ask the officer for assistance too. He/she might/might not speak English but if you have it written down, body language and maps can help out a lot.

Again with a little pre-planning before you go you shouldn't have much trouble (if any) finding a location or getting around.

Reminds me of my very very first trip to Japan, I actually did with no real preplanning, I just showed up at NRT (with a ticket purchased a week earlier), got on the Keisei Line to Nippori, I REALLY HAD NO CLUE on what to do after getting to Nippori, I had a hotel booked in Shinagawa, so I walked to the ticket gate, and showed my hotel reservation, the station worker looked at it and was reading the romaji "SHIN-A-GAWA..." "hi, Douzo" and sold me a ticket and pointed me to the JR gates "Yamanote-sen".

Later on when I was living in Japan, and using Tokyo FreeCycle to get free stuff from other foreigners leaving Japan, I went to pick it up in KitaIkebukuro, it was late at night and I got hopelessly turned around in the neighborhood, I saw an elementary school kid and asked them for directions to the train station "eki-wa doko desuka?", they asked me to follow them and they pointed me right to the train station.