If you are going to Kyoto, there is a really cheap hostel near Nijou castle . It was only 700yen per night with free internet when I stayed last year. I lived in Nara but would sleep there on my days off after partying in the Sanjou district.
http://k.fc2.com/cgi-bin/hp.cgi/kyoto-inn/?pnum=0_0

Well I'll play devil's advocate and say don't even bother with studying Japanese for your trip. Unless you devote five months full-time the amount of Japanese you learn probably won't be enough to actually help you.

You don't really need Japanese to get around in Japan, sure it would be helpful, but just travelling around the main tourist areas its not that important. If you get into difficulty you can probably find an english speaker. Or just try writing your question down, most japanese can read and write basic english. I suggest you don't ask a young person or an old person though. Old people have forgotten english, and young people's levels of english are getting worse. Middle aged people probably studied harder at school and still remember what they studied. There are plenty of english tourist guide books. Also head to the Japanese Tourism offices, they have plenty of maps, and people who can speak english to give advice. Sign posts to all the main destinations and on the train system are typically in english. In the metropolitan areas announcements on the trains are often in english as well.

The only time you really need japanese would be in an emergency situation, however after five months of part-time study, good luck trying to recall and use japanese in a stressful situation.

After your trip you will be in a better position to decide whether you want to learn Japanese or not.

If you really want to study something, don't bother with Remembering the Kanji, nor would I read Tae Kim's grammar guide (it is actually OK, and I recommend it for reference). I would recommend grabbing a beginners text like Genki and study it and listen to the tapes. That will give you a basic understanding of grammar and vocabulary so that you can make some sensible sentences such as simple requests, greetings, etc. As well as pronouncing stuff in a phrase book sensibly.

A lot of people are hung on doing RTK first. I'm not saying this strategy is wrong, but in my opinion there is no real evidence of it's superiority over other learning strategies.

Good Luck.

Just wanted to say, Pimsleur sucks.
I used him for most of the first few months, at the end of it, I knew next to nothing.
And the voice of the woman pisses me off, I was dreading having to listen to it.
It was a slow painful death.

So yeah, unless you wanna be bored to death, don't use Pimsleur.

I agree with Tobberoth.

Have fun and Good Luck!

As a counter to MeNoSavvys post, I'd like to say that while you might have a better idea of whether or not you should study Japanese AFTER going there, learning some Japanese and actually getting to USE it in Japan will make a HUGE difference. You will get actual real feedback, which will feel really good. Even if it's something as simple as asking where to buy the train ticket, it's still you using a language you learned for real in a practical sense. No better motivator than that.

Yeah, it's also very comforting to ask someone if this is the train headed for X, if you're in parts of various cities where there is no English. Even parts of big cities like Kyoto have subway stations with no English whatsoever.

askayscha Wrote:Just wanted to say, Pimsleur sucks.
I used him for most of the first few months, at the end of it, I knew next to nothing.

I won't disagree with these statements, except to say: 'Next to nothing' is not 'nothing'. With pimsleur, I learned a lot of the easy words: The numbers, basic verbs (eat, drink, possess), etc. No, it wasn't much, and no, I couldn't actually say anything more than 'I understand Japanese a little.'

But 1 thing made it worthwhile: I did it in my car on the way to and from work. It was time that was wasted anyhow, so it was worth filling with this.

Could you do the same with JapanesePod101? Probably... But JPod101 doesn't give the reinforcement that Pimsleur gives. It doesn't ever check back and quiz you on what you know. They just give it to you once and that's it... You either have it or you don't. Plus, Pimsleur's lessons are 100% lesson. There's no chatter, laughter, jokes in Japanese that you can't begin to understand, etc.

So compared to things you can't do in a car, Pimsleur sucks. Compared to the other things you can do... It's not so bad.

wccrawford Wrote:

askayscha Wrote:Just wanted to say, Pimsleur sucks.
I used him for most of the first few months, at the end of it, I knew next to nothing.

I won't disagree with these statements, except to say: 'Next to nothing' is not 'nothing'. With pimsleur, I learned a lot of the easy words: The numbers, basic verbs (eat, drink, possess), etc. No, it wasn't much, and no, I couldn't actually say anything more than 'I understand Japanese a little.'

I spend ?15 of my hard worked money on it.
And at the end of it, it didn't really teach me anything that I couldn't figure out myself.
Haha. Just to reinforce my point from before, seriously, its okay if you just want to know a couple of useful phrases, but if you are really serious about studying japanese, Pimsleur is not the answer.
Hey, to each their own innit? ;b

wccrawford Wrote:

askayscha Wrote:Just wanted to say, Pimsleur sucks.
I used him for most of the first few months, at the end of it, I knew next to nothing.

I won't disagree with these statements, except to say: 'Next to nothing' is not 'nothing'. With pimsleur, I learned a lot of the easy words: The numbers, basic verbs (eat, drink, possess), etc. No, it wasn't much, and no, I couldn't actually say anything more than 'I understand Japanese a little.'

I spend ?15 of my hard worked money on it.
And at the end of it, it didn't really teach me anything that I couldn't figure out myself.
Haha. Just to reinforce my point from before, seriously, its okay if you just want to know a couple of useful phrases, but if you are really serious about studying japanese, Pimsleur is not the answer.
Hey, to each their own innit? ;b

askayscha Wrote:I spend ?15 of my hard worked money on it.
And at the end of it, it didn't really teach me anything that I couldn't figure out myself.
Haha. Just to reinforce my point from before, seriously, its okay if you just want to know a couple of useful phrases, but if you are really serious about studying japanese, Pimsleur is not the answer.
Hey, to each their own innit? ;b

Well, if you take the money approach, there's nothing out there worth spending money on because you can get it for free, somehow. For me, it's about using my time wisely.

As for Pimsleur not being the answer... I suppose it depends on what the question is. You have to start somewhere, and I found it to be a good intro... Something to get started with. Classes -might- have worked better, but they weren't an option here... The only Uni that offers them won't respond to me for some reason. Probably because the answer was 'you have to enroll full time', which wasn't an option.

Pimsleur gave me something to hold onto while I was doing less fun things, like learning Kanji. If it did nothing else, it maintained my motivation.

Personally I would rather use JapanesePod101 than Pimsleur if I wanted something simple to introduce me while doing "boring" things. You're right, JapanesePod isn't even close to as repetive as Pimsleur... It is MUCH more interesting to listen to though. The result? You can listen to the podcasts several times over, Pimsleur isn't even fun to listen to once.

Pimsleur might seem like a more gentle approach than Japanesepod, but I don't think so. I allready knew Japanese well before I stumbled upon japanesepod101, but I've tried frenchpod101 and spanishpod101 as well... they work just fine, even for the complete beginner. The newbie podcasts are like... commercials, so they are only bareable to listen to once, but then again, those are so simple, once is more than enough. The beginners lessons are fine, I can easily listen to each of them 3-4 times before being bored. If you're going to have it in your car, who cares, you'll be focused on driving anyway.

The only thing is that there seems to be no free content any more..
I enjoyed listening to jpod101 while driving..

askayscha Wrote:

wccrawford Wrote:

askayscha Wrote:Just wanted to say, Pimsleur sucks.
I used him for most of the first few months, at the end of it, I knew next to nothing.

I won't disagree with these statements, except to say: 'Next to nothing' is not 'nothing'. With pimsleur, I learned a lot of the easy words: The numbers, basic verbs (eat, drink, possess), etc. No, it wasn't much, and no, I couldn't actually say anything more than 'I understand Japanese a little.'

I spend ?15 of my hard worked money on it.
And at the end of it, it didn't really teach me anything that I couldn't figure out myself.
Haha. Just to reinforce my point from before, seriously, its okay if you just want to know a couple of useful phrases, but if you are really serious about studying japanese, Pimsleur is not the answer.
Hey, to each their own innit? ;b

Your currency symbol doesn't show up, but even assuming that it's in GBP, you obviously didn't buy the whole Pimsleur course. The only one available for such a small amount of money is the 'intro' course, which is only the first ten lessons. If you consider all three Pimsleur courses, there are actually 80 more lessons -- which contain much much more than what you listened to.

Wow, this is very similar to my situation, except I'm leaving for Japan in approximately 7 weeks. I'll be there for 5 weeks, and I've been studying for 6 weeks. My study schedule and content seems to constantly change as my current needs change, but currently I am reading out of Japanese for Everyone, RTK (up to 500, was going at 40/day until reviews started to bomb me), listening to JapanesePod101 during transportation, and meeting with a native Japanese speaker once a week. Generally, I am trying as much as I can to follow the AJATT method. I studied Japanese during my freshman year in college, almost a decade ago, so I wasn't a complete beginner when I started.

My original goal was to finish all 2042 Kanji before I left for my trip. After reading this thread, I am flirting with the idea of dropping the kanji. It would be oh so nice to be able to recognize all of the kanji by the time I leave, but even then, I won't be able to read anything, only recognize patterns. I was worried about being able to read signs, which is why I made that goal in the first place. I was also thinking about taking a kanji dictionary over there so that I could look up readings, and continue learning on the fly.

If I go at my present pace, I will just finish the kanji before I leave, but I am not confident that that will happen. After the last week of going pretty heavy at 40/day, the reviews have just been destroying me, and I've been spending more time working through Heisig than I am studying Japanese!

Sigh.... thoughts?

MeNoSavvy Wrote:I suggest you don't ask a young person or an old person though. Old people have forgotten english, and young people's levels of english are getting worse.

I'll have to disagree with this. Middle aged people might have studied harder, but they've all forgotten it from lack of use too. Younger people (as in highschool or university student age) are much more likely to be able to communicate in English since they are still studying it, as long as they get over their shyness of talking to a foreigner.

damichan Wrote:Wow, this is very similar to my situation, except I'm leaving for Japan in approximately 7 weeks. I'll be there for 5 weeks, and I've been studying for 6 weeks.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother with Heisig if you are only going to be there a few weeks, or even studying Kanji at all. (Ok, bathroom, men, women can be useful) I'd concentrate on speaking and listening. You can always ask people near you how to read characters and that often starts interesting conversations. I still use it to start talking to people even if I know the character(s). I would try to learn hiragana and katakana, but that isn't a big challenge.

I'm not that down on Pimsleur, although it is a bit boring. There is a lot of English in Japan, well, especially Tokyo and other large cities. Don't sweat kanji. Speaking and listening will allow you to have a lot more fun then reading will. For a short trip, especially if you are alone, learn some some words for food. You can always meet people have fun in the small bars and restaurants around.

I agree with the posts here regarding not sweating the Kanji. Might I add, it may be a good idea to get a book on vocabulary for Japanese food.

It would be very helpful on a trip if you knew how to read different types of food in Japan:

寿司
とんかつ
ラーメン
親子丼
ウナギ丼
更科「そば」
焼き鳥
カレー
うどん
オムライス

and lots lots more. You can always go to chain stores like 大戸や which have picture menus, but the more you can read the menus, the more enjoyable the trip can be. First-time visits to a Japanese supermarket or コンビニー can also be an interesting experience.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

MeNoSavvy Wrote:I suggest you don't ask a young person or an old person though. Old people have forgotten english, and young people's levels of english are getting worse.

I'll have to disagree with this. Middle aged people might have studied harder, but they've all forgotten it from lack of use too. Younger people (as in highschool or university student age) are much more likely to be able to communicate in English since they are still studying it, as long as they get over their shyness of talking to a foreigner.

Yes but the middle aged people watch the learn to speak english programmes on NHK, also they go to Eikaiwa ! Ha !

Just kidding, anyway I wasn't 100% serious with my original post. I think you can't really tell that much about people's english ability from their age. Also although people study english at school, they don't really focus on speaking and listening. If you write it down they will probably understand, speaking probably not. This is based on my experience teaching english at a junior highschool and elementary schools in Japan.

For the people who are going to Japan for a holiday or whatever, I suggest putting the kanji study on the back burner. (All the Heisig aficionados will no doubt disagree.)

I recommend studying a basic text book, and also use the iknow website (switch it to Kana mode) and blast through as much vocabulary as you can from the core 2000 series.

I have my doubts about the learn kanji up front philosophy, now I think a better philosophy is this (if your first priority is spoken communication)
1. Learn basic grammar and hiragana
2. Use iknow or similar to build up your vocabulary as much as possible until you have about 2000 words. (keep studying the grammar at the same time).
3. start learning kanji using japanese children's textbooks (learning kanji is easier if you already know japanese), keep drilling vocabulary and grammar. Always make speaking and listening and vocab building your main priority.

(on the other hand I could be completely wrong!)

Yes, I appreciate everyone's advice about this. I think this makes sense and is the best approach.

However, I'm actually not going to follow it.

I just did the math: if I do 30 kanji a day, I will finish Heisig several days before I leave. I can learn 30 in less than 45 minutes, which is not that much time at all. If I scale back my kanji studying just a little bit, I can spend more time on vocab AND accomplish my goal at the same time. It would be awesome to have them done before I leave and it would be a great help in learning to read signs and iKnow vocab in the meantime. I think that I am strong enough to accomplish this. If this turns out to be too much, then I can always scale it back. I'd rather know 1600 or 1800 kanji, than completely stop now and know less than 600.

がんばっています！

I think you'll be disappointed about how much Heisig will help you with reading Kanji. It's more about learning to write them and the work you'll do afterward is to help link the pronunciation and meaning to the kanji. Heisig's keywords are often an over simplification of the meaning and more aimed at helping develop a story (IMO). If you plan on continuing your study after you return the time won't be wasted though. I like Heisig and I'm working my way through it again, but it's a very narrow scope of study.

Either way, keep up your studies and I'm sure you'll have a blast in Japan.

Nobody here doubts your strength or motivation, but I have to agree with those who have said RTK should take a back seat in this case. Add vocab as much as you can via iknow using "kana" mode. Listen as much as you can. Do pimsleur, japanesepod101 or whatever to get as many basic sentences and expressions as you can. If you must do RTK, do RTK lite first.

Sure, it would be cool and educational to be able to recognize a bunch of kanji. But which is more important, being able to interact with real humans or stumble your way through guessing the real meaning of some stupid street signs?

I agree with those who say you don't have enough time to make RTK work for your trip this time. It's really something that helps more in the long-term than in the short-term. The keywords are just tags to stick in your brain. Sometimes they will correctly jive with the actual Japanese meaning, but not always, and when 2 or more kanji come together to dance (as they are wont to do), they won't mean anything like what you'll think they will. RTK will make learning vocab easier down the road, but it takes more time than you have.

I'd spend my time drilling grammar, pronunciation, adding some good vocab, and listen, listen, listen. Constantly listen. Because that's how you're going to find out you've just missed your train or bus stop, or you're on the wrong train or bus, or the train isn't running, or something important like that. It's also how you get an ear for the language.

I don't like the excess English in japanesepod101.com, but the survival phrases lessons have some pretty useful stuff in them, especially the lessons on taxis, buses, and trains. I'm not sure about the rest.

What I had to do a lot of in Japan was things like making hotel reservations, dealing with the front desk, ordering food, going to the drug store, buying things at the conbini, sending packages full of junk I bought home, buying overpriced consumer electronics, visiting temples and shrines, and of course lots of public transport stuff. That's the stuff you should really focus on.

Better to aim for 100 and nail it easily than to aim for a million and miss completely. You can always reload and aim for 200.