7 ms·

Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers

146 points by zdw 8mo ago

ilamont 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
    In Japan and in many East Asian cultures, debate is behind closed doors. And it would have taken months. Meetings are for ceremony.
    - deaux 8mo ago
      > In Japan and in many East Asian cultures, debate is behind closed doors. East Asia consists of only 4 countries, two of them (China and Taiwan) sharing the bulk of their main language. In the other 3 East Asian countries, meetings being for ceremony isn't nearly as pronounced as in Japan. Plenty of meetings where discussion are had and new decisions are made.
  - dafelst 8mo 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 8mo ago
Could Project Managers start talking to me like the suggestion in Scenario 1 too please, that's clearly better.
- duskdozer 8mo 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.
onion2k 8mo 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.
- sunray2 8mo 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.
  - atoav 8mo 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.
    - p1esk 8mo ago
      I’m forced to do this with claude code: documenting work for context management. Every new agent starts fresh, so everything better be recorded and explained.
  - onion2k 8mo ago
avidiax 8mo 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.
- deleted 8mo ago
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- canpan 8mo 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 8mo 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.
  - materials 7mo 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?
lysace 8mo ago
Text is often a lot easier than speech.
- zahlman 8mo 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.
  - lysace 8mo 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.
    - zahlman 8mo ago
      Yes, that makes sense. One of the things that has made Discord, Slack etc. so important (and could have done the same for IRC if people weren't so intimidated by it) is that users feel free to switch between sync and async modes as appropriate.
  - numpad0 8mo 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.
deleted 8mo ago
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bythreads 8mo 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 ...
- OneMorePerson 8mo 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.
  - rbanffy 8mo 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.
    - OneMorePerson 8mo ago
      Oh yeah no doubt. That kind of thing is just human nature to some extent. Anywhere where getting something done gets you promoted or paid more (which again is a necessary side effect of rewarding progress) tends to have cases where people are producing bullshit or inflating their real contribution. Yeah I wonder about that sometimes, the maximal balance between efficiency and inefficiency. Some things are clearly a waste (like advertising as you mentioned) but then other stuff is part of innovation, and it's sometimes a bit fuzzy between the two. On paper it's wasteful that Mazda, Toyota, Ford, etc. all had to independently develop a sedan, yet it would be far worse if we only had one car company to choose from (far worse because of how monopolies inevitably stagnate).
sunray2 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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.
  - birdsongs 8mo 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.
    - Nashooo 8mo ago
      Would you mind sharing some info on how you found a tech job in Norway? I'm from another European country and looking for some first-hand knowledge on working in / moving to Norway.
faizan199 8mo ago
Do Japanese people know English?
- cinntaile 8mo ago
  The average Japanese person doesn't know English.
- frumiousirc 8mo ago
  The average native Japanese speaker knows more English than the average native English speaker knows Japanese.
- photios 8mo 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 8mo 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.
    - photios 8mo ago
zoom6628 8mo 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.
huflungdung 8mo ago
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muyuu 8mo 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.
- socalgal2 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
BalinKing 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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.
riteshyadav02 8mo ago
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zahlman 8mo 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 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 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
Have a strong liver.
unsupp0rted 8mo 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 8mo 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.

146 points by zdw 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago
  In Japan and in many East Asian cultures, debate is behind closed doors. And it would have taken months. Meetings are for ceremony.
  - deaux 8mo ago
    > In Japan and in many East Asian cultures, debate is behind closed doors. East Asia consists of only 4 countries, two of them (China and Taiwan) sharing the bulk of their main language. In the other 3 East Asian countries, meetings being for ceremony isn't nearly as pronounced as in Japan. Plenty of meetings where discussion are had and new decisions are made.
- dafelst 8mo 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 8mo ago

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

duskdozer 8mo 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.

onion2k 8mo 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.

sunray2 8mo 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.
- atoav 8mo 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.
  - p1esk 8mo ago
    I’m forced to do this with claude code: documenting work for context management. Every new agent starts fresh, so everything better be recorded and explained.
- onion2k 8mo ago

avidiax 8mo 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.

deleted 8mo ago
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canpan 8mo 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 8mo 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.
- materials 7mo 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?

lysace 8mo ago

Text is often a lot easier than speech.

zahlman 8mo 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.
- lysace 8mo 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.
  - zahlman 8mo ago
    Yes, that makes sense. One of the things that has made Discord, Slack etc. so important (and could have done the same for IRC if people weren't so intimidated by it) is that users feel free to switch between sync and async modes as appropriate.
- numpad0 8mo 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.

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bythreads 8mo 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 ...

OneMorePerson 8mo 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.
- rbanffy 8mo 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.
  - OneMorePerson 8mo ago
    Oh yeah no doubt. That kind of thing is just human nature to some extent. Anywhere where getting something done gets you promoted or paid more (which again is a necessary side effect of rewarding progress) tends to have cases where people are producing bullshit or inflating their real contribution. Yeah I wonder about that sometimes, the maximal balance between efficiency and inefficiency. Some things are clearly a waste (like advertising as you mentioned) but then other stuff is part of innovation, and it's sometimes a bit fuzzy between the two. On paper it's wasteful that Mazda, Toyota, Ford, etc. all had to independently develop a sedan, yet it would be far worse if we only had one car company to choose from (far worse because of how monopolies inevitably stagnate).

sunray2 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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.
- birdsongs 8mo 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.
  - Nashooo 8mo ago
    Would you mind sharing some info on how you found a tech job in Norway? I'm from another European country and looking for some first-hand knowledge on working in / moving to Norway.

faizan199 8mo ago

Do Japanese people know English?

cinntaile 8mo ago
The average Japanese person doesn't know English.
frumiousirc 8mo ago
The average native Japanese speaker knows more English than the average native English speaker knows Japanese.
photios 8mo 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 8mo 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.
  - photios 8mo ago

zoom6628 8mo 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.

huflungdung 8mo ago

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muyuu 8mo 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.

socalgal2 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo ago

BalinKing 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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 8mo 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.

riteshyadav02 8mo ago

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zahlman 8mo 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 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 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 8mo 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 8mo ago

Have a strong liver.

unsupp0rted 8mo 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 8mo 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.