Hi guys,

In Japan, you need to speak some basic Japanese to make life easier for yourself and your hosts. I have this website that offers some decent Japanese words and phrases which should be handy enough for you to survive in our trip next week.

Just remember certain points about pronounciation:

'a' is pronounced as 'ah'
'i' is pronounced as 'yi'
'u' is pronounced as 'woo'
'e' is pronounced as 'eh' or 'air' (low tone)
'o' is pronounced as 'oh'
'tsu' is pronounced as 'tse' (not silent t)

For example, 'no' in Japanese 'iie', it goes 'yi--eh'.

Another one, 'English' in Japanese is 'eigo', it goes 'eh-yi-go'.

So, nihongo wo narashimashyou! (Lets learn Japanese!)

Ki wo tsukete! (Take care!)