Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers

https://www.tokyodev.com/articles/working-and-communicating-with-japanese-engineers

by zdw • 5 months ago

146 104 5 months ago

ilamont• 5 months ago

developers from the West see no problem with clearly stating their opposition to a topic and listing the reasons why they oppose it—in many ways, this is seen as good, clear communication. This style can sometimes be jarring to Japanese speakers, who generally prefer to avoid anything that could be taken as blunt or confrontational.

This was buried at the end of the essay, but is one of the most important points.

I worked (not as a developer) in a company that was acquired by a Japanese company. Meetings were structured, and debate was kept to a minimum. If there was disagreement (typically framed as a difference of opinion or conflicting goals) there would be an effort to achieve some sort of balance or harmony. If the boundary was not hard, it was possible to push back. Politely.

Also, if Japanese colleagues expressed frustration, or were confrontational, that was a red flag that some hard boundary had been crossed. This was extremely rare, and replies had to be made in a very careful, respectful way.

keiferski• 5 months ago

From what I understand, it’s not so much that all disagreement is to be avoided entirely, but rather that it should be done on an individual level prior to the meeting. So the fundamental difference is that a western company may use the meeting as an opportunity to discuss and debate an issue, whereas that process is done before the meeting in Japanese corporate culture.

rawgabbit• 5 months ago

In Japan and in many East Asian cultures, debate is behind closed doors. And it would have taken months. Meetings are for ceremony.

dafelst• 5 months ago

Yeah, the concept of "nemawashi" (根回し) is very important there, this idea that all the groundwork and decision making is agreed upon before the meeting happens.

The term literally comes from the concept of "preparing the roots", that is, the process of softening the ground and trimming around the roots of a tree (often a bonsai) in preparation for moving it safely.

jamesbelchamber• 5 months ago

Could Project Managers start talking to me like the suggestion in Scenario 1 too please, that's clearly better.

duskdozer• 5 months ago

Yeah, a lot of these seem to me like just good communication skills. It's just disproportionately helpful for non-native speakers, I guess.

onion2k2• 5 months ago

Lush, the bathbombs company, has an internal tech team that builds the apps, website, and point of sale systems. I worked there for a little while on some web-based tooling for payments which involved working with the Japanese team who did the tech for the Japanese site. They were really good. Everything was incredibly clear and easy to understand because they had to put a lot of effort into written comms due to both the language barrier and the time difference. I built a great appreciation for what concise, high quality communication looks like.

It's worth getting a role where you're forced into improving. I'm definitely a better communicator than I was before that job because of it.

sunray22• 5 months ago

Sounds really nice! Do you have an example of the concise, high quality communciation the Japanese team used? It'd be interesing to see what they focused on to make it so clear.

atoav3• 5 months ago

Not the person you asked here, but my guess is that it mostly has to do with the need for asynchronous communications. You can't just quickly ask the guy from Japan and expect an answer right away. That means the text needs to cover all questions.

I once worked in a job where each day of the week was covered by a different person. Meaning at the end of the day you had to leave everything in a state that another person could pick it up right away without much hassle. This was mostly done via emails and pieces of paper with text on it, but worked flawlessly.

And the only reason it did was because you couldn't just ask the guy from the day before a question. It all needed to be anwered by the work he left for you.

onion2k2• 5 months ago

There are a few things.

- They didn't make assumptions about what the person reading would already know. Everything simple was explained, and was there were link to prior docs where complicated concepts were needed (e.g end of day cash consolidation in a store, because Japanese stores worked differently to US and Europe.) That made it really easy to read any document in isolation. We had a really good wiki that covered everything.

- The team insisted on keeping docs up to date, and deprecating old docs for things that weren't relevant any more. They kept things tidy. They didn't drop writing documentation when things got busy.

- They seemed to have spent quite a lot of effort organising things - tickets were always labelled and complete.

- They were dedicated to using consistent terminology everywhere. They had a glossary and they stuck to it, and that extended to the code that they wrote. Product docs, tech docs, and code all used the same language for the same thing. I think they avoided using similar terms for things too, especially where things could be ambiguous in translation from Japanese to English and vice versa.

To be honest, and with a decent amount of hindsight, I don't think anything was especially clever. It was just clear that the team put the effort in to doing the things most teams know they should be doing. I haven't worked there for a few years now but I bet they're having a lot of success with AI because that documentation would be a great source of context.

resheku• 5 months ago

I have a similar experience. Whenever I send message to my Japanese colleagues their response is always detailed and precise. They might take time in replying as of course they use AI and auto translating tools but the reply will be accurate. In fact, I find the worse level of English understanding the better the answer they provide, and it’s not only the work they put into it, there is a feeling of respect and importance towards other people work which I really appreciate.

avidiax• 5 months ago

I feel that everyone could learn and apply the idea of having clear, concise language without jargon.

I've hear this notion called "international English". English spoken in a way that non-native speakers find relatively easy to understand and follow.

The hard part of this is that non-native speakers will rarely ask for this. It's a gift that you have to give, and a gift you have to encourage others to give. And most of all, it needs to be done in a way so as not to be condescending, by simply being clear.

canpan• 5 months ago

I speak multiple languages fluently and people are always surprised when I share that my vocabulary is seriously limited. I learned it is an advantage. I am forced to use simple words to explain.

On the opposite end: I had a coworker, I only ever got about 30% of what he said. I thought it's my Japanese skills. He used complicated sentences and words all over the place. But when I asked other Japanese coworkers, they told me they could not understand him either.

electrosphere• 5 months ago

I am forced to use simple words to explain

I work with mostly Polish engineers and I am struck by how clear and concise their English verbal comms are. I admire it actually.

I'm a native UK English speaker and I wish I had the simple directness that the Poles, Dutch etc have.

materials2• 4 months ago

If Japanese coworkers could not understand your coworker, is it that he used complicated sentences or that he couldn't use them correctly? Being able to explain things in simple terms is really useful, but it also means that you have to explain a lot more when conveying nuance or precision because you can't choose the word that means exactly what you want to say. Do you ever run into this, or do you feel the simple explanations can cover everything you want to communicate?

chii• 5 months ago

Wouldn't that international english be the same simple english (e.g., https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)?

accidentallfact• 5 months ago

I believe that this goes beyond vocabulary. It's more about who bears the burden in communication - in most cultures, it's the speaker, who is supposed to communicate clearly, and concisely. In western culture, it's the listener, who is expected to decipher whatever the speaker is talking about.

orthoxerox2• 5 months ago

It's always interesting to watch how a bunch of non-native speakers of English from different countries sitting in a room can talk to each easily, but when a Brit or an American joins, the conversation immediately collapses.

satvikpendem3• 5 months ago

In what way? What I've seen is the native English speaker bends over backwards to explain each and every idiom or try to not use them in the first place.

lysace2• 5 months ago

Text is often a lot easier than speech.

zahlman4• 5 months ago

I would say, text requires more effort (at a minimum, typing is slower than speaking); but it pushes you to do things that you should do in speech but rarely would do spontaneously.

lysace2• 5 months ago

It also allows the other person to take their time to understand and reply. They can use online translation tools etc.

(Edit: Now that I read this: I should try writing e.g. Chinese using these tools, next time, instead of defaulting to English. My mother language isn't English, but it's pretty close, comparatively speaking.)

A pattern I often end up with when there is a large language barrier: begin with long async messages that take a minute or two to write. End up with brief sync-ish messages as things get more detailed and we share more context.

numpad04• 5 months ago

Most Japanese people are sooo slow in speeches in English that there will be too much of those you-shoulds to the point that just typing would be easier.

bythreads• 5 months ago

Worked for years in japan, beg to disagree.

Love japanese and japan but their work culture is horrific - Japanese are inefficient and the veneer of looking to work "hard" is more important than the hard work itself. People often stay until ridiculously late just to show they "put in the effort" which is more important than outcome.

Then again that happens in many other countries as well ...

OneMorePerson4• 5 months ago

Most places/countries/companies that value hard work tend to produce a lot, but I also wonder what goes on when it tilts too far and hard work becomes what you are measuring for. In the US for example there's still the vague idea that working hard is a virtue of sorts, but there's also an equivalent desire to produce something, be efficient, etc.

I haven't directly experienced Japanese work culture (just language and traveling) but it seems like they value hard work above all else, which makes innovation almost a threat. You might take away someone's opportunity to show "hard work" if you removed a difficult task.

rbanffy4• 5 months ago

In the US for example there's still the vague idea that working hard is a virtue of sorts, but there's also an equivalent desire to produce something,

This is the root of a lot of busywork and bullshit jobs as well. People work hard producing something of little and often negative value.

Think of all the effort that goes into making competitive products, from life insurance and cellphone plans to airline tariffs difficult to compare. Compound that with advertising campaigns that don’t inform about the product or service they are selling. All that consumes colossal resources and deliver effectively negative value for society, for a market to be maximally efficient it needs informed consumers that can compare offerings.

zikduruqe• 5 months ago

In the US for example there's still the vague idea that working hard is a virtue of sorts

And easily demonstrable when meeting someone in a social setting:

"Hi, what's your name?"

Then the very next question: "What do you do for a living?"

cedws3• 5 months ago

Yeah. I lived in Tokyo for 6 months as a digital nomad (so still working for an overseas employer.) As much as I love Japan, after hearing what the work culture is like I became pretty sure I didn't want to move there permanently. Not only is it an extremely unmeritocratic environment, the pay for software engs is rubbish. As a foreigner you'll more than likely be treated like dirt and passed up on for promotions.

I think it's a shame because Japan is going through a massive tourism boom at the moment. There's surely a huge number of incredibly smart and talented people who would like to bring their skills in and help lift Japan out of its economic slumber. But Japan is still very closed off and shows no signs of wanting to modernise.

adrianN2• 5 months ago

I’ve heard people argue that Japan stays appealing because it is closed off and puts effort into maintaining their culture instead of modernizing into a generic western melting pot.

satvikpendem3• 5 months ago

It's worth living in Japan if you can control your work schedule, by working for a remote Western employer that may not know nor care that you're outside the West, or by having your own startup and product. Otherwise I'd agree.

lucyjojo• 5 months ago

I'm always puzzled by these comments because my personal experience (and those of my foreigner dev friends) is kinda the opposite.

sunray22• 5 months ago

Something the article touches on: communication is not just about how we express ourselves, it's about this mutual respect that that we have to grow into. That crosses any boundary, and is something we can always learn.

You can see that, to some extent, in how the article’s points apply to language and communication in general, not just between Japanese and English. While turns of phrase give your repartee a flavour that sells your point—like what you’re reading now—it’s also a product of your thinking process, and as the article says, could cloud the point you’re trying to make. If you can speak or write clearer, then your points will also become clearer to yourself. That’s follows my experience, since I speak a lot of German for work. In German, I must think carefully about each point I make, otherwise I’ll run into a sentence for which I don’t know the words. I endeavour to respect the language and culture, and in doing so put effort into making my points simple enough for me to reach for the right words and phrases to show this respect (at least, I try!)

For a good example: David Sylvian collaborating with the late Ryuichi Sakamoto. You can see them writing ‘Blue of Noon’ in the Brilliant Trees sessions on Vimeo/Youtube. David talks about his use of really minimal language to get musical structure and points across, since Ryuichi’s English wasn’t yet as perfect in the 80s as it was later on. You see this directly in the session videos. What’s truly the best about it, is the respect they show for each other.

Bad example (potentially): Aston Martin F1 collaborating with Honda on the new F1 engine :-) . After several years of extensive development and billion-dollar investment, today they’re at the back end of the grid, more than 3 seconds off the pace. According to recent rumours, as recently as November, the Aston Martin F1 bosses visited Tokyo to discuss progress of the engine that had been in development for a few years, apparently having hardly visited before, and were shocked to learn that only about 30% of the original workforce from Honda's previous venture in F1 remained. It seems they didn't even know how far behind schedule Honda was! For projects as large as F1 car development, it’s unfathomable that this mutual curiosity, which in effect is a form of respect, apparently wasn’t there.

netsharc• 5 months ago

The Honda collaboration "wrecked" McLaren too for several years last decade (incidentally it also featured Alonso, who complained about "GP2 engines!"). Damn, they were unbeatable for a few years with Red Bull, but it seems those engineers moved to RBPT, and they now have a typical Japanese/Asian "non-communicative" engineering team...

mfuzzey• 5 months ago

"we really need to focus on user-facing touchpoints, because there’s too much sign-up friction. Like, we need to 10x the stickiness of the landing page but also keep it lean,"

Even as a native English speaker I find this type of language hard to understand, fluffy and ambiguous. We would all benefit from using plain language not just non native English speakers

founditerating• 5 months ago

Who the hell talks like this in the first place?

I've worked in Japan for 7 years and majority of the time you will not be working with native English speakers, usually people who speak multiple languages at all times, if you're only language you know is English you are the minority and people will have to work with you to understand.

I couldnt even finish the article after that insane ramble of gibberish I'm genuinely confused who in the hell would ever talk like that.

birdsongs2• 5 months ago

and majority of the time you will not be working with native English speakers, usually people who speak multiple languages at all times, if you're only language you know is English you are the minority and people will have to work with you to understand.

This is pretty much life anywhere outside of North America and the UK (or colonies). In Norway, I don't think a single coworker of mine is a native English speaker (I am). We get along fine of course, but often I see the resistance they feel when having to switch to English. Second (or third) languages just take more brain power, and have more friction.

I have learned Norwegian, but English is still is required sometimes, as it's the common denominator amongst the mix of Norwegian, Swedish, German, and Spanish people. And that English is usually functional and as clear as can be.

This is the engineering department though. If you go to marketing or strategy it's full of this corpo double-speak.

iso16312• 5 months ago

Who the hell talks like this in the first place?

People trying to hide their own lack of knowledge and ability

numpad04• 5 months ago

Who the hell talks like this in the first place?

guys that aren't sure if the yellow isn't too much

Klonoar• 5 months ago

There are definitely companies in Japan that have people who will talk like this.

Hell, I’ve advised some of them.

atoav3• 5 months ago

This is The Lingo. It is something people use when they try to say bland obvious stuff while sounding like they are tech wizards that deserve a high wage. I know the pattern, I studied philosophy, where you also have some writers that express simple ideas with complex lingo, while you have others where the lingo is complex, but it is needed, because the thought is also complex. For the uninitiated telling the two apart can be hard.

In this case that just means: our landing page needs to convince more people to sign up without getting too bloated.

This means it implies a linear correlation between amount of content on the page and sign ups. More content, more signups. But not too much, otherwise it is bad again.

In essence it is a bad take on a probably real problem, expressed by a person that needs to hide behind the lingo.

gavmor• 5 months ago

That's an awfully cynical perspective, but these terms evolved because they're useful. No one is forcing us to speak them (although they are forcing us to hear them.)

I would rather refer to affordances than to "user-facing touchpoints", because that's a more specific abstraction aimed at, specifically, interactive elements whereas "touchpoints" is, to me, vague; does it refer, also, to the merely visual aspects which "touch" our retinas?

"Friction" is a metaphor, and there's nothing wrong with that! I imagine that one monitoring a conversion funnel would naturally ask "what's causing the members of this cohort to drop out of the flow?" Well, it's friction that challenges spatial progress, and spatial metaphors make good use of some underused cognitive hardware.

"Increase stickiness... but also keep it lean", though is, at worst, an oxymoron and, at best, lazy along the lines of "... just make it good and not bad."

financltravsty3• 5 months ago

This makes sense?

User-facing touch points: everything a user can interact with

Sign-up friction: self explanatory

Stickiness: less bounce rate

Lean: don't overload with touch points/bloat

throwaway1737382• 5 months ago

You’re actually using jargon to explain jargon here. Try explaining all of this from the user’s perspective.

SpicyLemonZest• 5 months ago

None of the terms here are fluffy or ambiguous. They're about specific details or strategic categories that you (perhaps justifiably) don't find important. The original post's suggested rewording is reasonable, but it doesn't include all the information: the recipient won't know that the sender wants further improvement even though the latest build may be better than what's live, or that developers should avoid trading off scalability in the process.

faizan199• 5 months ago

Do Japanese people know English?

cinntaile• 5 months ago

The average Japanese person doesn't know English.

frumiousirc• 5 months ago

The average native Japanese speaker knows more English than the average native English speaker knows Japanese.

photios2• 5 months ago

Yeah. I'm not a native English speaker and I spent significant time and effort learning the damn language. It paid off.

What's preventing Japanese engineers from doing the same?

koito17• 5 months ago

What's preventing Japanese engineers from doing the same?

The fact they don't really need it in their life (or job). English is definitely necessary if you work service jobs in Tokyo (to deal with tourists), but not much anywhere else.

Japanese is one of a handful of languages where one can complete a postdoc entirely within the language. Many languages are not like this. e.g. in the Phillipines, STEM subjects are almost entirely taught in English, since Tagalog simply doesn't have words to describe most of the concepts. The result is something like 90% of the coursework being in English, with random Tagalog words mixed in. The concept is called "Taglish" if I recall correctly.

This is unnecessary in countries like Japan, China, South Korea, etc. If you're applying to a graduate school in Japan (or China, or Korea), expecting to receive education in English is actually the edge-case, not the expectation.

Also, at least in my company, there is an interesting trend where people are deciding learning English isn't really necessary since AI translation has gotten "good enough" for most use cases.

smukherjee19• 5 months ago

Yes, especially if people living in the city. I have known Japanese people who can’t speak English well but can read technical CS papers and understand well enough to give a summary and presentation in Japanese.

Just keep in mind they are usually very good in reading, okayish in listening, and kinda needs work on speaking. But that’s expected. If you live a daily life in Japan like the Japanese, you barely need to speak English, or hear it, if at all. Even the foreign staff at the convenience store speak Japanese good enough for them to carry on their duties.

numpad04• 5 months ago

Standard Japanese public education through to college/university include ~1k hours total of English classes, changing but still focused on word-for-word translations.

The goal and aim of those classes (I think) is so that 21st century Japanese engineers can decode foreign scientific papers and encode export user manuals on their own.

And so Japanese engineers can interpret and compose English text files as, one would handle C-like code. Consequently read/write data rates as well as emotional grasp are closer to that for code than speech, and the ability also gets dubious quick for anything "platform" specific and not literal. Like, even "to pull off" will cause an exception and quick jump/return with "achieve". It would be fair to say that calling it English literacy is a bit of a stretch.

It will do for many purposes, so in that sense, yes, Japanese people do know English.

There are people(not me) from rich or otherwise unique backgrounds or educated before WWII who use actual English and not that embedded English Lite, they're rare.

33712• 5 months ago

Do (your country) people know Japanese?

socalgal24• 5 months ago

I'm not sure what this question was meant to convey.

There are many countries (or cities) in the world where you can easily get by in English beacuse almost everyone you need to / want to interact with can speak English. Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm are 4 the come to mind even though their native languages are Dutch, French, German, Swedish.

Japan is not one of those countries. Yes, you can survive without speaking Japanese with a lot of effort and asking friends to translate.

So it's not an unreasonable question to ask if they speak English. It's effectively asking, are they liked the 4 cities mentioned above.

I was once at a bar in Tokyo and where I met a young French woman who was thrilled to be going back to France after 6 months in Japan. She had wrongly assumed the her English would get her by like it had in many other countries who's first language was not English.

socalgal24• 5 months ago

No, in general they don't. Anyone telling you differently was in a bubble of English speaking Japanese. That's not the norm, not even in Tokyo.

Engineers can probably read because the majority of tech, computer languages, libraries, their docs are in English. Though that might change now that LLMs can make all the docs in Japanese removing the need for English skills.

Speaking ability is rare.

zoom6628• 5 months ago

As Someone who has spent decades working with teams around the world with varying levels of English from native to none, these are good guidelines. I would add to try and talk using the simplest and least ambiguous words you can. Breathe. And use shorter sentences.

I also have non English speaking family members so I get to improve everyday. And yes I make mistakes every day but 99% avoidable and the rest I just accept and move on. Multicultural and multilingual teams are a joy not a test so enjoy them when you have the chance. Might surprise yourself how much you will learn about people and communications and build a new level of self awareness in the process.

My 2c.

muyuu2• 5 months ago

I worked in Japan for ~7 years. I don't think I can relate with any of this, for starters I think not speaking Japanese relatively fluently would completely shape your experience from the get go.

Granted, this was a long time ago and even seeing non-Japanese around in Tokyo was rare, unlike now. But in the office environment let alone in tech, I doubt you can really make it work without not just speaking Japanese, but being considerably adapted to their culture. I think the chances of the dev just moving to Japan to work in tech and be anything other than a total outcast are poor. Which is ok if you plan to just do a year or two maybe. Even the author himself first got well acquainted with the language and culture then moved into development. And even so, this is hardly for but a select few to just fit into this lifestyle.

For North Americans or Europeans, the intersection of people who can make it work and are also incentivised to make it work looks infinitesimally small to me, esp. if you can opt for jobs in the industry in America or even Europe. It's a totally different story for someone from say South Korea or Taiwan, or to a lesser extent other Asian countries. For starters, coming in as a junior dev in Japan or as a translator won't be a massive pay downgrade for them. For South Koreans and Taiwanese the culture will be a lot more familiar, although there will of course still be some friction. So imagine coming in as mid-manager or higher, wow it sounds like quite the experiment to me knowing the place well. CEO with capital, maybe. But good luck with that.

socalgal24• 5 months ago

I agree with you. The person in the article worked at Mercari which I used to go their tech meetups. The moment you entered it was as though you teleported into an SF/SV meetup. Mostly English speaking people with English presentations in a room with an SV like microkitchen, free SV snacks, etc... That's not the norm at all.

axpy906• 5 months ago

Yeah, saw Mericari and had some flashing lights go off.

Most Japanese tech is in - well Japanese - companies like Mericari, Woven and Rakuten are exceptions, hence you get a blog post on how to speak English properly.

cdavid• 5 months ago

The typical solution is to work in one of the "global" (aka American) companies in Japan: google, amz, apple, ms, etc. At least for now there are enough jobs across all those companies for motivated foreigners, though that could change.

deaux3• 5 months ago

Granted, this was a long time ago and even seeing non-Japanese around in Tokyo was rare, unlike now.

Please say "non-East Asians" when that's what you mean. There were already loads of Chinese and Koreans around in Tokyo 7 years ago.

For North Americans or Europeans, the intersection of people who can make it work and are also incentivised to make it work looks infinitesimally small to me, esp. if you can opt for jobs in the industry in America or even Europe.

The cultural adaptation you're talking about applies just as much to China and Korea, yet there's a huge reason for Europeans (not Americans, but they're the sole outlier) to work there as SWEs - post-tax + post-big-city-CoL, salaries are a lot better until you get to 10+ YoE.

People tend to look at London or Amsterdam stated salaries and think this is impossible, but the tax and housing cost differences completely change the equation. 40k EUR at 40% tax is the same as 30k EUR at 20% tax.

In big European capitals, for 800 EUR/month you get a parking space or a place to share with 3 others. In China or Korea in a tier 1 city for the same money you can rent a nice, newly built place for two (so 400 EUR/month/person) in a central location with private indoor parking and great transit links.

muyuu2• 5 months ago

Please say "non-East Asians" when that's what you mean. There were already loads of Chinese and Koreans around in Tokyo 7 years ago.

it wasn't 7 years ago, it was 20 years ago, 7 years up to 2006 there were some Chinese, but really few and far between and in the Kanto area, mostly in Yokohama

i was studying Chinese back then, and I struggled to find people to practice

The cultural adaptation you're talking about applies just as much to China and Korea, yet there's a huge reason for Europeans (not Americans, but they're the sole outlier) to work there as SWEs - post-tax + post-big-city-CoL, salaries are a lot better until you get to 10+ YoE.

probably it does - certainly Korea, China not as much - and also differently, and the topic here is Japan

People tend to look at London or Amsterdam stated salaries and think this is impossible, but the tax and housing cost differences completely change the equation. 40k EUR at 40% tax is the same as 30k EUR at 20% tax.

40K is extremely low in tech, and where are you paying 40% tax on 40k??

In big European capitals, for 800 EUR/month you get a parking space or a place to share with 3 others. In China or Korea in a tier 1 city for the same money you can rent a nice, newly built place for two (so 400 EUR/month/person) in a central location with private indoor parking and great transit links.

I can't speak of living in China or Korea, I have only visited. It wouldn't cross my mind to live in China, for reasons beyond the scope of this post.

RE in Japan is currently much better than in say the UK or SanFran or NYC. MUCH better. This wasn't the case when I was there, it was comparable or even more expensive. However the yen was stronger and salaries in tech were, although lower, much closer than they are now. If you are a computer scientist or an electrical engineer, you will easily make double or triple the salary, so rent doesn't make up for it. This is a volatile situation though, right now the situation for juniors seems to have deteriorated massively everywhere, so it's really hard to tell how it would work out either way. But unless you really want to learn the language and the culture and are willing to make strong sacrifices for it, moving to Japan in order to work in tech sounds like a crazy proposition.

BalinKing• 5 months ago

Minor nitpick, but I didn’t think テーマ (tēma, “theme”) was an abbreviation—Jisho and Wiktionary (for what they’re worth) say it’s from German Thema.

BobbyTables2• 5 months ago

This article misses some significant cultural differences.

I worked with a talented older group in Japan for a while.

If on a call they said something would be “difficult”, that was their understated way of saying “never in a million years would we do that”.

They were also strongly hierarchical and would often defer to their leader to avoid any disagreement.

They could teach the British a lesson in understatement…

Even though we had a close working relationship they were very much trying to “save face” when issues came up and didn’t directly admit shortcomings.

Also, never address them by their first names !!

thadk• 5 months ago

Since it kind of had an LLM flavor in the original anyway, I had an LLM redraft this for my particular non-Japanese intercultural situation, and it wasn't valueless. I had to tell it to "Make sure to keep the same technology focus of the original."

Bridged7756• 5 months ago

It is the expectation in my country to wait for your turn too, and seen as rude or a power display to speak over someone.

I also find that casual conversations are more turn based, and people are expected to continue a conversation by asking questions (of the other person). So this also means being mindful of how long you've spoken, and to ask a question about the other person instead, to not keep the other person just listening. The gauge is questions (or short responses), and the period is silence.

I find that questions pose less importance with US people, which might still use them, but not in the way we're used to. There i feel like the gauge is speaking (or short responses) and the period is silence.

Greetings like "how's it going" and "what's up" were confusing at first too, it took me a while to get when people were using them as greetings.

nautilus12• 5 months ago

Worked for famous Japanese data platform for a few years. The Japanese engineers were collegial but some who didn't come in to the office were actually Hikikomori focused on very narrow things and were very nitpicky about details that wouldn't have ultimately mattered. Those that came into the Tokyo office lived to work and I saw people regularly sleeping at their desk after having stayed out all night for obligatory whiskey outing with colleagues and arriving at the office at 6 am as expected. The San Fran office was the opposite, very sloppy standards people, getting in at noon and staying up late to meet deadlines. The impedence mismatch between the two environments was almost unbearable.

zahlman4• 5 months ago

Make your English more understandable

This entire section is also good advice for working and communicating with English engineers. (Especially in a world where about 3/4 of English speakers don't have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language as their first language.)

Create new meeting strategies

A lot of this is also relevant within English, honestly. (The phrase この認識で合っていますか is good to know and I definitely wouldn't have come up with it on my own.)

If you notice that certain members are very quiet at a meeting, despite seeming like they have something to say, see if you can give them an opportunity. A simple “Does anyone else have thoughts on this?” can go a long way in making sure everyone feels heard.

This in particular also seems like something I've seen recommended in many other contexts.

Lastly, be aware that some katakana words are commonly abbreviated differently in colloquial Japanese, often becoming unrecognizable to English speakers. Here are some examples: ... Topic/theme (of a meeting): テーマ (te-ma)

The others check out, but https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%83%86%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9E isn't an abbreviation. It's just.. a loanword that English speakers might well not recognize, because it comes from German Thema (in turn from Latin and Greek; so ultimately the same source as the English "theme", but by a separate path). Also because we don't often use the word "theme" this way, but yeah.

pseudohadamard• 5 months ago

That was my reaction as well. The examples given at the start weren't just of poor communication to Japanese engineers, they were poor communication to anyone. Scenario 1 was so laden with corporate gibberish that I was having to guess at what was being said, and Scenario 2 was "ah, this person is -><- here on the autism spectrum".

chickensong• 5 months ago

Have a strong liver.

unsupp0rted• 5 months ago

Most Americans / Brits I've interacted with don't know what a phrasal verb is and don't realize they're hard to parse. Canadians and Kiwis too, but they've often got much more experience interacting with non-native English speakers.

Take out vs. Take up vs. Take in vs. Take on, etc

I try to avoid using phrasal verbs wherever a simple verb will do. And if I have to use a phrasal verb, I try to keep it together: "let's take on this task" vs. "Let's take this task on". The latter requires an extra effort to parse. But obviously "let's take this task" works too and is simpler.

The worst is when Americans use baseball idioms without even noticing they've switched away from "base-level English".

If we get this shipped by the end of the month it'll be a homerun, and if by the end of the week then I'll consider that a grand slam.

So... ship soon = good then, got it.

Brajeshwar• 5 months ago

If we replace “Japanese” with “Indians” or any other non-native English speakers, this should work pretty well, too. I’m lucky to have worked with developers and clients from around the world (USA, UK, many Western European regions, Australia, Singapore, Japan, and India).

My magic thought process is, “Nobody can read anybody’s mind. So, speak or ask.”

I’ve also been an English-to-English translator between Indians and Japanese. The way is to enunciate, simplify, use generic words, and know at least a few commonly used words for that community. Indians have our own way of saying lots of things that translates to weird English, and so does the Japanese.

An Indian’s 5-minute is way different than a Japanese’s 5-minute! ;-)

I don’t try to go too deep and read into the nuances, as I feel I’m being pretentious. When in doubt, ask the counterpart to check if they got it and perhaps say it in their own way.

Early in my career in the 2000s, I got used to working extensively with Americans, who made it seem like everything was possible. We go fly hunting, bring in the sledgehammers. I once questioned my knowledge of the entire English language while talking to an Australian contractor whom I worked with. Turned out it was nothing compared to a Scottish designer that I worked with for 3 months.

Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers

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