If you’re an international developer working at a Japanese company, you’ve probably felt some communication-related pain. Whether your team primarily uses English, Japanese, or a mix of both, chances are there’s occasionally friction.
In a field where poor communication leads to wasted effort, bugs, and low team morale, what can we do? Learning technical and business Japanese is obviously useful, but that’s just one piece of a bigger puzzle.
Having worked in Japan for 10 years as a non-native Japanese speaker, communication is a subject that’s always been on my mind. This was especially true during the six years I worked at Mercari, one of Japan’s first tech companies to adopt an international engineering organization composed of developers from both Japan and from abroad.
I initially joined the company as an English-Japanese interpreter, and later transitioned to a software development position. I worked with a large number of international teams in both roles, and witnessed all sorts of communication struggles firsthand. And although I provided support by interpreting between English and Japanese, I also realized that the challenges went far beyond just language.
Fortunately, I also had the privilege of seeing many of these teams gradually overcome those communication difficulties. Thanks to those experiences, I can confidently say that regardless of your Japanese level or your colleagues’ English levels, there are things you can do right now to improve understanding and confidence on both sides of the language barrier.
I advise people to:
Make your English more understandable
Being aware of your own speaking habits in English is crucial, and surprisingly easy for native speakers to forget.
Consider this: if you’re very comfortable speaking English, but your Japanese teammates are not, how do you think they feel when communicating with you? It’s probably nerve-racking and takes a lot of mental bandwidth. You can accommodate by making your English more understandable.
Making your English understandable does not mean ”speak extremely slowly,” and it certainly doesn’t mean “speak louder.”
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