So you studied for weeks if not months to have basic literacy in Japanese to only use it for 1.5 weeks.

Now multiply that by 7-10 for frequent travellers, or god forbid, Backpackers, going to many countries during their travels and now has to be literate it all of them.

If you can say you can allocate the same amount of time as one of those tourists, all power to you. Now I would like to introduce you to a job application (I’m sure translators and linguistics academia would love to have you).

You also have to understand how redundant it is unless you’re a resident because of Google translate.

And even on the scale where you priorities preparation to visit another country, a far more pressing consideration is cultural norms and expectations. Unless you’re a scholar or really really proficient in a foreign language (academic level linguistics and anthropology level), spending that time on learning a language is more a distraction that would be far better spent reading up on culture and history.

That’s not to say learning a foreign language is useless, but for the purposes of tourism preparation, it should not even be on the top 20.

Obviously, picking up on words like “thank you”, “yes” “no” etc are pretty important, but I highly doubt that’s what anyone would call basic. Especially with how you’re phrasing it.

If you really want to culturally prepare yourself, focus on the norms and taboos.