Rather than take a public opinion of seeing how little you can get by with, it would behoove those of you who are seriously considering spending some time there to put some actual effort into learning it. I suggest starting with grammer and learning the kana (by that I mean hiragana and katakana). Learning vocabulary is all well and good until you start trying to tell someone something and you don't know how to put the words together. Buy some software or some books to help you out. If you aren't willing to invest in that much, you probably don't really want to go over there as badly as you think you do.

that would be kind of hard, but i'll have a hot translator to translate everything for me till i fluently know Japanese.
but it would suck if i saw my jp bands and jp actors and didn't know how to communicate if they don't know English .

and we all know why that is eh........c==B big cock sucky fucky long time....long long long time

yeah... the american GIs always have the fun with them... sadly

Damn yanks!

yeah if u always have a japanese friend with u translating everything fo u

Probably not considering it would be insanely difficult to get by without knowing the language.

prolly

i say learn thee basics first nd phrases you need to survive xDDD

i think nope//~~~~

of course it's possible to live in japan without speaking their langauge, but later on you will find out that it would benefit that you were able to read the kanjis and the kana.- so.. hehe, frankly speaking, you need to understand the japanese kana system .-

well, when I lived in japan I met a lot of foreigner who was only able to say few words like 'arigatou, genki desu etc.' and well, they just went with the flow and talked english .

nah!>..I think it would be very enjoyable to live there..it was almost a perfect place..I've been planning to go there afterall and I was hoping to learn their language and speak fluently...there's nothing impossible as long as you wanted what you doin..

OMG!!! Why does like EVERYONE wanna live in Japan??? My Dad has lived there & He said it is not all that great... Everything is expensive there as far as living... It is way over populated too... But He said it is fun if you take a vacation there... But you need to have Money... I'm from America & I LOVE it here I can't picture Myself living Anywhere else And if you do not no the language then it would be so hard on Anyone in ANY country...

you WILL have a little chance running into a japanese person that knows english.
you basically need to how to ask directions,bathroom etc so the locals can understand you and help you out

Yes, you can. My batch mate studied in Japan for a year without even learning Japanese. She studied in a International School.

I don't think so. You probably need to know Japanese before all that.