For a ski trip and 4 days in Tokyo and Kyoto and I wanted to know how much Japanese I should learn. I know none at the moment. So I really want to know how much i should learn and which areas are more English speaking?

I didn't ask for phrases
I just wanted to know where that spoke english and where they did not
As for asking you Japanese girls to teach me Japanese.......;)

As far as i know, there are no Japanese girls on totse.
Anyway, I have traversed the place quite intensely, although I havnt been to the snow there :( you should be ok in the ski resorts because they are becoming increasingly popular in Japan's tourism market.
I speak japanese to the people of japan, so dont have much knowledge of their english skills.
In kyoto, tourists flock to the temples, you will find alot of english speaking japanese people working around them and if you are lucky you will find volunteer english speaking tour guides. Nara is good too, you can feed deer there, tourists lap that shit up.
Tokyo you will find english speaking japanese people in the main tourism places such as the disney land/sea area (chiba) To go to disneyland take the keiyo (red) line to maihama station which is also ikspiari and get the monorail around.
I cant remember off the top off my head how to get to asakusa, shinjuku, harajuku, korakuen or roppongi, but you will find english speakers in all of these places too. Make sure you go to roppongi and get trashed during happy hour, its the best. The info people (not the guards, but people in the booths) in tokyo station can speak english, so if you want to go somewhere, just ask them how to get there.
Finally if you are going to japan, know no japanese and do not intend to learn any then your an asshole. No tourist, anywhere, do their homelands any good when they go overseas and scream at natives in their own language, expecting them to understand.
If you want more info on places to go or the language let me know.

Go to Niseko, Grand Hirafu. There's been a lot of investment by Australians into that resort so there's a fair few English speakers. Plus it won the 2008 award for the best snowfall. Win/win?

i think im one of the very very few japanese totse member.
anyways i honestly dont go to japan for ski and snow
but i would reccomend u to definetnyly read up on the basics of japanese...
just go on google and write like japanese words foreigners should know when they go to japan.
other then that japan has some really nice stuff!