There's no way I'll be spending the rest of my life in Japan but it would be interesting to put my Japanese to use when I eventually do go home (I'm Scottish). So I was wondering if any of you out there have any experience of using Japanese in your workplace?

Experience of using Japanese in the workplace? What, other than reviewing kanji during my lunch hour?

I'm interested in training as a language teacher eventually and was surprised by the number of job adverts I've seen wanting Japanese - it does seem to be becoming a more common language in UK schools. I'm guessing you may not specifically have teaching in mind?

Financial services and transaction law businesses need multilingual attorneys and investment types to structure investments to sell to Japanese businesses. They need to manage the relationships, paper the transactions, and of course handle the resulting lawsuit when the investment tanks.

Translation services need Japanese skills.

Also, there are businesses that cater to Japanese clientelle. Good luck getting a job with them unless you're ethnic Japanese.

But those are all pretty general ideas. If you get into specific niches, there's more interesting work. It all depends on what you're interested in. Me, I'm interested in baseball, so if I were looking for a job, I might try to be the interface between American and Japanese baseball-- read up on NPB players and report interesting Japanese baseball stories to American fans, try to be the guy who tells Americans who tomorrow's Daisuke Matsuzaka will be. Become that kind of expert and you can write articles and provide advice and all kinds of stuff. It's probably not a million-dollar job, but it might just be a way to make money by combining interests.

If you're into gadgets, you can be the guy who tells the English-speaking world about cool Japanese technology. Right now there's no good source of that info-- all that exists are photos and babbelfished press releases.

As a speaker of both Japanese and English, you have some information arbitrage opportunities. Pick one and follow it down into a niche.

I am also at a point now where I am thinking about future employment in regards to a job that uses Japanese. I have committed a lot of time to learning this language during my nearly 2 years in Japan and I think I really have found something that I both like and (ちょっと自慢なことですけど) am pretty good at. following this, I want to take learning and using this language as far as I can. working in an Elementary school here gives me an absolute shitload of free time to study, so I am quite happy working here for now, but at some point I want a frigging challenge! I haven't a clue exactly what it is I want to do so I appreciate this post for giving ideas etc. jjazz, your post was very informative, thanks. I think this thread is a good idea.

fiminor Wrote:I'm interested in training as a language teacher eventually and was surprised by the number of job adverts I've seen wanting Japanese - it does seem to be becoming a more common language in UK schools. I'm guessing you may not specifically have teaching in mind?

Teaching would do fine. However working at a university is more appealing than a high school. Not sure how easy it would be to come by a post though. From the universities I looked at, the majority of teachers hold a Ph.D. in something to do with Japan. I suppose that's a good way to cut down the number of job applicants. Although quite why you need a Ph.D. to be able to teach a language is beyond me. That said, you're bound to have some specialist knowledge that your students may be interested in.

jjazz Wrote:If you get into specific niches, there's more interesting work. It all depends on what you're interested in.

I think a 'specific niche' is pretty important. Not to denigrate gaijin who can speak Japanese, but there's loads about with a pretty high level. More important once your Japanese is at an acceptable level, in my opinion, is some specialist knowledge of something other than simply the language.

yorkii Wrote:I think this thread is a good idea.

So am I off the hook for the other day?

Is there anyone out there actually teaching Japanese professionally?

Unless it's a language direct need like translation, interpretation, teaching, etc., another language is simply a skill to be utilized within a job/profession/career you love. Pursue what you're interested in and then find, or create, the (Japanese)language connection. The number of positions may be limited, or you may be forging the field, but it's always there.

I'm going into firefighting/EMT after I finish in Japan. I've already thought of numerous different ways I could apply Japanese to my job, like, international training exchange, safety code advising, fire equipment sales/marketing, relief services coordination, etc. And an especially large related field to firefighting is through construction, which could use Japanese extensively.

Your application of Japanese in your career is only limited to your imagination.

synewave Wrote:

yorkii Wrote:I think this thread is a good idea.

So am I off the hook for the other day?

hehe, yea. no problem mate

Dingomick's advice is spot-on. A friend of mine worked as a programmer for a games company which got taken over by a Japanese company. He suddenly found himself regularly in contact with Japanese colleagues and wished he had some knowledge of the language and a better understanding of culture, particularly when the opportunity of doing some fixed-term project work in Japan came up. You never know when these kinds of opportunities might appear!

I imagine this is a common thing for one to think about. For myself, May is my 1 year poin in Japan and still be teaching until at least next April. I'm perfectly fine with where I am, but it's not a long term thing. I don't know exactly what I want to do long term but I do want to continue to use Japanese in my daily life.

I majored in Computer Science at school, so I'm thinking I can either go to Tokyo for some tech job there (probably a job doing English tech support but being in Japan keeps me using Japanese) or maybe teaching Japanese back home.

I just don't want 10 years to pass and be wondering whether it was こんにちは or こんばんは that meant good afternoon.

I agree with the sentiment that unless you're learning Japanese for a specific job (translator etc), then just do a job you want to do and keep an ear to the ground for any links you can make to Japan.
Better to be doing a job you enjoy, that doesn't use your Japanese, instead of one that you hate that does...

Mighty_Matt Wrote:Better to be doing a job you enjoy, that doesn't use your Japanese, instead of one that you hate that does...

Totally agree with this. I've no interest in being a translatoror but teaching Japanese at university (in Scotland) is something I think could be pretty interesting. Being good at Japanese is probably not enough to land this sort of job though.

Not that I'm going home for a good few years yet so still plenty of time to find my angle.

p.s. In case you don't know, a translatoror is the Ali G version of a translator.

Hello synewave,

I'm scottish too. However I 'm still an undergraduate student (law). I am not a pessimistic person but there is very little Japan related work in Scotland. If you want to work in the UK and also want to use Japanese, London is probably the only place to do it.
You might want to check out The London Career Forum. http://www.careerforum.net It's mostly geared at Japanese students studying abroad but if you're Japanese is good enough there is no reason to not attend

This is the desription if you want to check it out: ロンドンキャリアフォーラムは昨年に引き続き、6月に開催されます。国際感覚に優れた欧州在住の学生、MBA、社会人を求め、グローバル企業が出展します。2007年に卒業の方は、卒業前に内定を獲得するチャンス、2008年に卒業の方にとっては、就職活動を開始するのに最高のタイミングです。ヨーロッパで開催される1年に1回のキャリアフォーラム。

James