Companies in Japan opting for select offices to work in English
asahi.com
asahi.com
...that being said, this is also kind of inevitable. Masahiro Sakurai[1] talked about this in a video, about how he has to remind Japanese developers to name all their files and functions in English. Just in case they need to bring on foreign contractors. Japanese programmers are already slinging around a lot of English relative to the average resident of Tokyo, even if it's all wasei-eigo[2].
[0] What a waste!
[1] Designer of Kirby and Smash Bros. Now runs a YouTube channel on game development, which has an English version translated by 8-1.
Yes that is the same people that translated UNDERTALE into Japanese and yes it's because Toby Fox recommended them.
[2] Made-in-Japan English. Japanese is like 10-20% English by volume, so sometimes they'll just make up new English words. Sometimes they even get loanworded back into English!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gairaigo_and_wasei-eig...
I wonder if people will find this massive superstrate of English words in all languages in the far future and wonder what kind of civilization existed that it extended its influence so far.
In Japanese, you conjugate verbs differently depending on if the person is more or less senior than you, as well as other language changes. Apparently when they switched to English it caused people to take offense that lower people were being rude. Also, people also struggled to identify who was at what level, something that is super easy listening in to a Japanese conversation.
Not sure how involved the person I heard this from was, but it makes a good story!
When I, as a Korean American, got promoted into a managerial role with direct reports, I tried to foster a more casual working environment and told my new minions they could call me by name. My manager chewed me out for that - my reports were to always refer to me as Team Leader John, not John (not my real name).
I quit that job, and got into my first Western (British) company. I ask how I should be addressing my managers and superiors, and the answer is “oh just call them by their first name, whether it’s your line manager or the CEO”. Culture shock.
Post World War II and Manhattan project, the culture learned that hierarchy creates an energy barrier for information transfer.
It was interesting for me working with professors at the bench in The United States. When I was studying in Germany, professors seemed more aloof/ivory tower-ish, at least where I was in east Germany MOF 2000s.
We visited Japan in the mid-00's and outside of Kyoto found a real shortage of latin-lettered signage. Our train and hotels were set up by a friend so we didn't have to deal with that and fortunately there were readable letters with the train and an appreciation of my business cards when checking in. Otherwise, there was a lot of pointing and Indian food involved. Have things changed since then?
Edit: When we were there our GSM phones did not work in Japan - we needed to have a rental. Has the spread of iPhones meant that non-native phones can work in Japan?
And even absent that you can just figure out and manage. It's not the Netherlands but you can be functionally illiterate and exist here
There are plenty of Japanese classes in Japan. There are formal language schools, things offered by the city, and you can also just pay for private lessons. But if you're coming for work you're probably busy with work
Having said all that... loads of companies do the whole "English is the official language" thing here but are still properly segmented into "can speak Japanese" and "cannot speak Japanese" cliques. It's not the end of the world but I would say the workplace is where the questions are the biggest for me
Every train route is on Google Maps, restaurant menus are easy to scan with Translate, there are English signs everywhere, many touristy places speak English anyway, the locals are super friendly and helpful, etc.
It's a major international destination, not some backwater island...
Yes, they do. It's called Shibuya / Shinjuku, lol I'd say if you have a partner who's Japanese, and you're lazy af, you don't need to learn the language. Most foreigners I've met in Tokyo stick to their groups as well and usually end up complaining about Japan and the bureaucracy (mostly because they can't read or write to save their lives).
> Have things changed since then?
I think the biggest change is the Japanese opting to use more ひらがな（hiragana）/ カタカナ (katakana) in the news, signs, and every day messages (subtitles / ふりがな [furigana]). This is highly welcomed in my opinion. I think it's the right way to teach all people how to read.
I must say though, companies like HENNGE is quite special, and I root for more companies that try to welcome changes. Although there are only a handful of foreigners in my current employment (including myself), we try to slowly include English in our stand-ups / other small-informal meetings.
I heard the same from my in-laws around then, but we've been a bunch of times over the last decade, most recently immediately post-quarantine-- Hiroshima, Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto and Tokyo.
I'd attest that across these cities, they really stepped up signage in preparation for visitors to the Olympics. I barely had to think to translate anything on the last trip; everyone had English menus, QR codes to English versions of such, and English signs everywhere tourists were expected (arcades, stores, restaurants).
We had kids in tow so weren't crawling locals bars, love hotels or pachinko parlors. Those may still be tricky to navigate.
Obviously it didn't convey the whole message, but sometimes just enough to understand what it meant.
Verizon phones should work fine though, though the CDMA part won't work abroad obviously, but the other bands it uses should be enough. Verizon phones are all unlocked. Others you might need to get unlocked by the carrier before you go.
Also, the very latest iPhones don't use SIM cards, but rather eSIMs. I'm not sure if that'll work with a tourist-oriented phone service (I doubt it).
yes gov has free language lessons avail to foreign residents
In language, Japanese has a lot of gotchas that can mean the opposite of what you meant to say, and cause offense where a compliment was intended. One easy failure is the difference between cute (kawaii) and ugly/scary (kuwaii)...polarization hinges on a single mumbled syllable ("kuh-waii" yields mixed reactions). So make sure you speak clearly and with enunciated confidence, like you're a Real Housewife from New Jersey. If you want to say "cute," the key is in the "kah" ;)
I’m not trying to correct you just for the sake of it. Fortunately, all of this is pretty easy to be clear if you learn katakana, it’s pronunciation and romaji for several loan words. Using on-the-fly pronunciation guides like “uh” will trip you up.
Pretty much everything is affordable at the current exchange rate if you're already able to get a round trip flight over here.
> One easy failure is the difference between cute (kawaii) and ugly/scary (kuwaii).
Cute = kawaii (kah-wah-ee) Scary = kowai (koh-why)
But even if you mispronounce, people will understand what you meant to say just based on the context. They won't think you're saying their dog or baby is "scary" instead of "cute".
Also, it would be quite hard to cause offense to most Japanese people if you're attempting to speak their language. I wouldn't go into any conversations with that anxiety in the back of your mind.
In fact, they like you making mistakes. Much has been written by sociolinguists about how conservative Japanese are uncomfortable with foreigners speaking Japanese too well: it puts the foreignеr in an uncanny valley where his/her speech doesn’t match his/her foreign looks, or it offends their sense of firm ethnic boundaries.
However! It's quite hard to deal with the bureaucracy if you stick with GTranslate only. But for other purposes, it's very fine. The Japanese themselves are not into small talks so...
"The policy, however, made it harder to find Japanese engineers than previously. Some have shied away from talking in English. There were even some who quit Hennge because of the change."
Doesn't surprise me a bit.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/malcolm...
How many English speakers are they attracting? I would imagine national immigration policy is the primary limiting factor for how many English speaking software engineers a company could attract. There's plenty of qualified people in the North American and Europe that would be interested in working in Japan while speaking English.
The problem with software engineering in Japan is that the salaries are much lower than in the US, though they're not too awful compared to Europe.
Top talent from, say, Vietnam already speaks good English and many would jump to the opportunity to work in Japan under these conditions.
I haven't met too many Vietnamese though, but I have met a couple. Japan also attracts a lot of Filipinos (though not so much in the IT sector, in my experience).
Mid-level probably 5-10m.
That’s just based off what I was seeing when I was interviewing and considering a move there. Ultimately decided against it.
Also, the entirety of Japan isn't relatively wealthy, just like the US. The rural areas are dramatically cheaper to live in (for housing mainly) than the big cities. However, there's less "spread" than in the US: all the software jobs are going to be in a handful of large cities, not in some remote prefecture or village (whereas in the US, there are jobs in some smaller and even very small cities, where that one employer is likely the only place you can get such a job nearby and you'll have to move if the job goes bad). But even if you just look at Tokyo, the pay range can be enormous, at least a full order of magnitude.