I’m looking to take my autistic brother to Tokyo next year (hopefully if covid allows anyway) as he’s completely obsessed with Otaku culture. I’ve been using pimsleur and am nearly at the end of the first level, so I should easily finish at least level 3 before we go.
But is it enough? Will we get lost without being able to read for example?
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you can enjoy a trip to tokyo without any japanese at all. english everywhere. tourist help stations in most major stations. enjoy~
You sound like an awesome sibling.
I don’t have experience with Pimsleur, but if you’re interested in textbooks I’d recommend Genki 1. It’s not gonna make you fluent or anything but it’ll give you a decent survival vocabulary when it comes to asking for directions and other basic questions. To supplement, there are plenty of youtube channels that teach survival Japanese. I’d also recommend downloading the Google Translate and Shirabe Jisho apps for the rare signs/menus/labels that aren’t available in English. Shirabe Jisho is especially helpful because it has a function that lets you look up kanji characters using a touchpad, as well as a flashcard function for new words you encounter.
P.S. Your first priority should be learning Hiragana and Katakana. Not only will it help your pronunciation, but a lot of the best resources don’t use romaji after a certain point.
To read written text, you can use Google translate with your phone camera, so maybe look into renting a hotspot device to have good data connection.
Highly recommend getting a SIM card you can pick up at the airport to use google maps with, and most of Tokyo is very English friendly. You can get by with beginner level Japanese.
you can probably get by just fine with ‘arigatougozaimasu’