Hotel Japanese is short and highly scripted, which makes it easy. Check-in, a passport, a key, a breakfast time. The phrases here cover the whole arc, including the requests that hotels expect and visitors are shy about making.

A ryokan is a different building with different rules. Shoes come off at the entrance, meals arrive at set times rather than on request, and the room becomes a bedroom when staff lay out the futon. Asking when dinner is served is not a small question there — it is the shape of the evening.