Things Google translator may not know...

It's hard to be a language insider here.  Culture is so tied up in language, and both the thinking and the speaking here are often the opposite of what comes natural to an American.  While we speak to be understood and value clarity and directness, the Japanese language is meant to be vague.  Yesterday, while involved in a brainstorming session with a Japanese company, I heard a great example of this.  While on English Facebook, we hit, "like," when we like a post, Japanese hit, "chotto ii ne," directly translated as "a little good, isn't it."  Let's not make too strong of a commitment to our opinion!  This is why straight translations of English to Japanese never come across well.  I recently had a very important letter translated by an excellent translator, and when I showed it a member of the target audience, he immediately said, "This is obviously a translation.  Get it re-written in natural Japanese."  Even though English words are often used in Japan, the real meaning and the Japanese meaning can be quite different.  For example, I also found out yesterday that here "renovation" means "innovation," and "innovation" is a little-known word.  Of course, I am also a great butcher of the Japanese language, especially pronunciation.  Recently, I was on TV in connection with my volunteer group.  When I watched it, I thought, "That's gotta be the best example in existence of Japanese spoken with a strong Southern accent!"  Contact us at www.noah-digital.co.jp/english/ for marketing help in Japan.

High-Tech Japanese Style

Is Japan high-tech?  It's a hard question to answer.  I am constantly surprised by the many people here who aren't computer literate.  While my parents, who are in their mid-to-late 70s, love their computers, Facebook, e-mail, YouTube, etc., I have never met older Japanese people like that.  Even more interesting is that many Japanese in their 20s and 30s only have access to the internet via their cell phones.  In fact, a cell phone social networking site called Mixi has been popular here for years.  So, in that way, Japan was ahead of smart phones since people here have been accessing the internet via cell phones and sending text messages for a long time.  But on the other hand, many of these high-tech cell phones users wouldn't know how to attach a document to an e-mail sent via a computer.  My volunteer group created a cell phone website to reach the many people here who will only be looking at the internet through the tiny screen of their cell phone.  We also find Mixi to be far more effective at this point for reaching people than Facebook or Twitter.  So, if you define high-tech more by cell phone technology than by computers, young Japanese are leading edge.  Contact us at www.noah-digital.co.jp/english/ for marketing help in Japan.

Pretty and Pink in Japan

About seven years ago, some Japanese friends and I started a volunteer group.  Our target was and is young adult Japanese women.  I have learned from that experience the importance of pretty, cute and soft in Japan.  (It's not just limited to young women either.  I've seen large comic or "manga" characters painted on police stations here.)  While the homepage and brochure we first designed were attractive yet realistic, members of our target audience told us they wanted pink, flowery hearts.  I have also found that softness in language is a must.  People are easily offended by what they consider an inappropriate tone.  My Japanese colleague agonizes over every word she chooses when writing on our homepage, while I fly through the English-language version without a second thought.  Japan is actually quite emotion-driven, though it would seem to be the opposite. This is just one of the many contradictions of this great, yet complicated, society.  Contact us at www.noah-digital.co.jp/english/ for marketing help in Japan.