[Raisthlin]

you can forget about having decent converstaion skills after 4 weeks right away. No matter how hard you try... The best you could do ( which is what i did) is learn key phrase and stuff like that. Of course you can learn a lot of kanji and meanings or words but actually having a conversation and understanding answers ... forget it. Dont get me wrong tho. After 8 weeks of living with the japanesse you will be able to understand some basic stuff. I mean the "sounds" are easy to reproduce and if you learn around 1000 word you can actualy put them together real good....but having a conversation and understanding answers without any help...no way.

Just do the best you can and it will be already enuff to impress them A LOT.

Study back home as well...start RIGHT NOW. Ive been involved in learning japanese since my 1 month trip last summer. it really is an interesting language. have fun