[GoNative]

You'd be better off looking at doing some joint research project at a university I reckon. When I did some Japanese lessons some years back there was a Russian girl also attending who was a physicist doing some joint research at the Hokkaido University. She was by no means fluent in Japanese at all. But between her limited Japanese and their limited English she seemed to get by no problem at all. I guess the main language they were using anyway was that of physics and mathematics which is universal.