phooze

I agree with the last post: simply move to Japan. Get whatever visa you have to, just get over here, and then work out the rest from inside the country. There are plenty of resources all over the web.

However, the idea of getting a girlfriend or boyfriend to help you learn is a little questionable. Isn’t that like using them as a resource/being used as one? I like a girlfriend who likes me for me, not because she wants to practice English.

This website is in English, so I’ll assume most people that want to do this are from Western countries.

I’m an American who has studied Japan and Japanese for about five years; I have lived in Yokohama since last year.

I have had friends come to visit me here, and I can’t say it exactly went well. If you asked them, they had a great time - which is all I suppose that matters - but it was very hard for me to “show” them Japan: their interests were colored by their ideas of what Japan should be, rather than what it “is”.

Many of my American friends here have experienced similar things.

In short, if you’re going to Japan to visit someone who’s not Japanese, keep in mind that it might be more stress on them than they realize, if they’ve never had a guest before. My advice is to minimize how much you rely on them to be a tour guide and interpreter. Let them choose their level of involvement in your trip.