PSG1 Hovercraft, ive tried everything.

It's not so hard, I don't know any Japanese and I was able to complete the game, the Hovercraft, and the road pass seem to be the most difficult parts of the game, and they are solved by just talking to NPCs. Besides there is a walkthough up at pscave.

The walkthrough at Pscave is very complete : I've downloaded and printed it but not read it : I will do it when I will play the game, not before : no risk to "spoil it"
You don't even know some japanese names or words ?

Nope, I'm completely illiterate. I learned what some of the weapons and items where while playing, but it's most like recognizing shapes to me. I have no idea what they actually say. For menu's and battle screens it's easier to just memorize the order, and for spells I looked at TP.

I am fascinated by other languages, but the thoughts of learning another alphabet or 2 is bit scary to me. It's hard enough to learn a language that uses the same letter system.

I see about the shapes :a good memory is very important, the same about the menus and their order and the hint for the TP is evident but I didn't think about it ! And you can also try to see what the magic is doing in the game
Agree about the difficulty of learning two or three new alphabets ! Too hard so I abandoned it but maybe one day...