I try to learn some of the local language before I travel to a place. Memrise and Duolingo are awesome. So is Youtube :) Though, I think that most of the language becomes cemented by being in the place and speaking what little you know. Locals almost without exception seem to appreciate the effort - even if for the entertainment value.
My tips are to learn the basics: Hello, Thank you, Goodbye, please, yes, no, where are the toilets?, and then the numbers. After that, anything that interests you. I improved my Cantonese by having almost the same set of questions about family that I asked like 20 different taxi drivers. Food is usually a good bet since menus are sometimes in multiple languages (so you can triangulate) and the vocabularly has plenty of repeating words.
Even though I'm only in country for tourist lengths of time, I think the experience is richer because of attempting to speak the language. I can recall a midnight conversation where the common language we shared were broken Mandarin. He spoke broken English and fluent Vietnamese - me, vice versa. Somehow we made it work. I learned alot about Vietnam from a lady whose grandfather spoke fluent Cantonese - her english was decent, but her Cantonese was better. So, we spoke about the realities of having children in Vietnam. I saw her again a few years later and she had two children - thank fully both healthy.
I've been given a basic history lesson by a gentleman at the shrine to the first shogun. My basic Japanese was sufficient to ask why the buildings at the Shrine had the Shimazu family symbol - and this was not the Shimazu area.
I can keep going on... the reality is that even very very basic language skills go a long way to having human to human experiences. With humour and patience communication can happen.