Have you been to another country before? If you have, think about the kinds of things you wanted to say / said. Then work out the translations of them. Then get someone to read them.(Japanese google lady as a last resort will do it for you, at least she does it for me ;-) theres also a site called rhinospike you can submit stuff to be read by natives,) Then you can listen and repeat. For real conversational Japanese you need real people to talk to.

Here are some potentially useful Phrases

Sorry I didn’t catch that, can you say it again slower please.

Stuff like :

Sorry I don’t speak a single word of Japanese.
Sorry I don’t understand Japanese.
Do you speak English?

Are not very important at all really because just not speaking Japanese gets these messages across. :D

Heres some that might also be useful:

Is this thing on my plate safe to eat?

Am I doing this correct?

Please can you explain that to me?

Note I’ve left the japanese equivalents as an exercise for the reader. ;D

In my experience phrases really won’t get you anywhere, I can tell you real people never answer the questions correctly / ask the right questions, so when it comes to language learning they are more of a red herring, they can be useful to learn vocab, because you are actually putting stuff in context. Consider the language learning you’ve done so far, how much did those phrases help you? You might still remember the phrases, but would they help you communicate? Have you tried using them?

I lived in France for 4 years and my experience is phrases really are a last resort, there is no one way to say things, people will always say something different, even if their words are 90% of a phrase you know, the 10% that are different will spook you, and the pressure of the situation will make it seem like they are speaking a foreign language [ ;) ]. Phrases are really an all or nothing thing, if someone uses a phrase then you’re fine, but if not then you’re screwed. Oh and nobody really talks like those phrases.

If instead you can think how to build up phrases, or even break them down, then you have a skill that will get you a lot further. You can skip some words, because they might not be needed, or you can ask about the meaning if you don’t understand. Work on building up an understanding of the underlying rules then you just learn the vocab to fill in the blanks.

Also in Japanese, pronouns aren’t that useful for low level japanese because often context implies whether it is he, she, they etc. Also use of those pronouns is not very polite, you would usually refer to the person directly.

I think also Textfugu, maybe isn’t a 100% solution for learning Japanese, its a good resource but it needs to be used with other resources. Tofugu website has loads of articles about other resources you can use. Podcasts etc.

Try listening to japanese podcasts or TV or stuff, to get used to the rhythms and sounds of japanese.

Go to your local library and find their learn japanese audio CDs and listen to them. remembering that phrases are red herrings of course but take away vocab and grammar and pronunciations.

Youtube Japanese videos like Japanese pod 101, etc can be good ways to find out some bits and pieces.

But ultimately the best thing to do is to become super proactive with your Japanese learning. If you find stuff you need to know make a note of it, (Maybe in your japanese learning diary, ha ha, yeah I have one of those, no I was joking koichi I totally have one, don’t hurt me), then you can try and find out, using Jisho.org or something, Then find some japanese forum / resource, and say, hay yuo guise! Is this right. Following this kind of process means you’ll learn more than if someone just gives you some phrases.

Also think about how Text Fugu could be better, maybe koichi does need to add some phrases or something, 1 phrase per pagey thing, just to mix stuff up! If you can come up with a good ideas and suggestions you can email koichi with ways he could improve textfugu.

Heres a good website for some resources
http://www.tofugu.com/2010/04/06/tofugu-100-best-japanese-learning-resources/

Ignore their number one though, seriously! ;P

Oh !

Also,

Don’t be afraid to skip ahead to future chapters in text fugu and read them, don’t feel you have to follow the structure 100%, feel free to sneak some looks ahead if theres something interesting or useful you see when browsing the contents page.

• This reply was modified 12 years, 8 months ago by  vlgi.

A lot of the kanji lessons in Textfugu have various ‘set phrases’ that do help your conversational skills. These kind of vocabulary phrases are scattered in various kanji lessons.
A lot times, watching Japanese TV and movies have helped me EXTENSIVELY in learning conversational Japanese skills, because the shows help you understand the norm of what Japanese people say everyday.