I'm currently living in Japan and my Japanese is not exactly "conversation ready." Since this is Japan, peacocking is pretty damn ineffective since pretty much everybody already dresses like anime characters here. I'm foreign, which is both a curse and a blessing in this case; I'm considered more attractive than most Japanese guys, but girls are way shyer because of the language barrier.

The question is this: What techniques are out there that I can use to keep up my game when there's a huge language barrier in the way?