Following the fragmented story of our last travel lesson, you now find yourself hanging out with a Japanese person (or people).

Enjoying a few moments with a new human being is exhilarating in its own way, but I think we can all agree that the real magic of interacting with new people is developing new relationships. That's my roundabout way of saying: We now need to figure out how to continue seeing this person in the future.

You might meet a Japanese person using one of the tactics discussed in previous lessons, or you might just meet some cool people at a hostel, hotel, or AirBnB. Or maybe you think the volunteer tour guide showing you around is pretty cool. Whatever the case, there are some useful phrases we can memorize for making plans with this person in the future.

One such phrase that I like:

明日、一緒に遊びませんか？
あした、　いっしょに　あそびません　か？
Would you like to hang out tomorrow? // We should hang out tomorrow.
Literally: “tomorrow, + together + won’t play + か?”

It took me a long time to get used to using the verb "to play," 遊ぶ (あそぶ), among adult friends and family.

Asking an adult "Won't you play with me tomorrow?" in English can lead to... well, I'll leave that to your imagination...

But 遊ぶ doesn't just mean "to play" in Japanese. It also means "to hang out." And, at the risk of scaring you from using it, it can also mean "to mess around." As in, "he was messing around behind her back" (a lesson for a different course).

We're just using 遊ぶ to mean "to hang out" in our sentence, though:

一緒に遊びませんか？
いっしょに　あそびません　か？
Would you like to hang out? // We should hang out.
Literally: “together + won’t play + か?”

As you can see, we don't necessarily need to say "tomorrow." Let's say you meet a new friend in Tokyo, but tomorrow you're going to Kyoto for a few days, and you'll be back in Tokyo this weekend. In that case, you might say something like:

土曜日、一緒に遊びませんか？
どようび、　いっしょに　あそびません　か？
Would you like to hang out on Saturday? // We should hang out on Saturday.
Literally: “Saturday, + together + won’t play + か?”

Or perhaps:

今週末、一緒に遊びませんか？
こんしゅうまつ、　いっしょに　あそびません　か？
Would you like to hang out this weekend? // We should hang out this weekend.
Literally: “this weekend, + together + won’t play + か?”

Notice that we're repeating the same phrase a few times? That's my sneaky way of getting you to memorize it.

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Because everything goes according to plan in this imaginary world of ours, the person you're talking to then says:

いいですよ。
いい　です　よ。
Yeah. // Sure. // OK. // Sounds good.
Literally: “good + です + よ.”

But what now?

Do you ask for a phone number? An email? To be friends on Facebook?

It depends on a few factors, such as the age of the person you're talking to. In the vast majority of cases, though, I'd recommend connecting with this person on LINE, which is the most popular messaging app in Japan.

Just about everybody has LINE, so you can just go ahead and say:

じゃあ、ライン教えてください。
じゃあ、　ライン　おしえて　ください。
Let’s be friends on Line, then. // Let’s connect on Line, then.
Literally: “well then, + Line + teach (me) (and) + please.”

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Last of all, I should mention that if you're a male speaking to a female Japanese person, you may want to slightly alter your initial invitation.

Including a word like みんな, "everyone," can make your invitation a bit less frightening for her:

明日、みんなで一緒に遊びませんか？
あした、　みんな　で　いっしょに　あそびません　か？
Would you all like to hang out tomorrow? // Would you like to hang out with all of us tomorrow? // We should all hang out tomorrow.
Literally: “tomorrow, + everyone + で + together + won’t play + か?”

Then again, if you're hoping for a date with just the two of you, and you think your odds of her agreeing to it are pretty good, I guess you don't have to include みんなで.

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Well, we've had a nice detour into talking-with-locals territory, but in the next lesson I think we'll get back to some more traditional "Travel Japanese."

Maybe we'll take a trip to a restaurant together...