What is the Scope of the Japanese language?

Japanese is an East Asian language spoken by approximately 128 million people, a majority of whom live in Japan, where it is the national language. It belongs to the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, and its relationship to other languages, such as Korean, is debatable. While there are many dialects and accents in Japan, experts agree that the largely monolingual status that exists here is very unusual. Most countries have many major languages that are commonly spoken within their territories. Little is known of the language’s prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the Heian period (794–1185), the Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) included changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language and the first appearance of European loanwords. While there are many dialects and accents in Japan, experts agree that the largely monolingual status that exists here is very unusual. 

Japan is the leader in many sectors like automobiles, animation, consumer electronics, computers, optical media, semiconductor manufacturing, infrastructure, shipbuilding, and many more, with Made in Japan being synonymous with high quality and technologically advanced products.

Japan is also one of the leading nations in patent filings. Statistical intellectual property data from around the world indicates that Japan’s total patent application in 2018 alone was over 300,000! Prominent Japanese brands such as Sony, Honda, Panasonic, Hitachi, Toshiba, Sanyo, Casio, Canon, Minolta, Pioneer, Nikon, Fujitsu, Suzuki, Toyota, Mitsubishi, and hundreds of more continue to infiltrate the world market over in a wide range of sectors. Being able to communicate with potential clients, customers, and colleagues can open doors for a successful beginning. The ability to speak Japanese offers many jobs that require bilingual or multilingual skills. Today, many companies are searching for Japanese language specialists. With a better understanding of the Japanese work ethic, business etiquette, and knowing which cultural faux pas to avoid one can bag outstanding projects, negotiate appropriately and clinch critical deals. Whether its designing electronic gadgets, inventing innovative, beautiful products, or designing high-end fashion clothing, the Japanese value craftsmanship, quality, and pleasing the consumer.

Japanese could help you secure an edge over others due to bilingual or multilingual proficiency. Companies world over are trying to increase their client base in Japan with progress in their bilateral relationship. Such partnerships between nations substantially increase job prospects for job seeker in Japan.

Japan has been known overages to have one of the best education systems in the world. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives, ranks the country’s high school students number one globally for maths and number 2 for scientific literacy. Thus, studying in Japan will always significantly improve your employability. It could prove to be your greatest career asset.

Japan proudly holds the title of being a leader in education owing to its outstanding academic tradition, pioneer research, hardworking culture and innovation. It houses approximately 780 universities, specialized vocational institutions, and 100’s of junior colleges.

Unlike English and other European languages, there is a lack of reliable Japanese translation tools and software.

So when the demand for Japanese specialists is staggering high, and the competition is relatively low due to the complexity of the language, the scope automatically becomes immense. 

Translation is a highly competitive and dynamic job that works best when one chooses to specialise in a specific domain (law, science, medicine, education) in order to target a specific niche. Avid travellers often find success as translators in the foreign country where they live. One could also consider working as an interpreter, with at least two spoken languages. And although the interpretation job, unlike a translation job, is critical, time-sensitive, and less flexible, and interpreters must be present in-person with the employer during conferences and courtrooms, Japanese continues to be the highest paying language for translation and interpretation jobs. The most popular type of interpretation is simultaneous interpretation, in which a language is decoded as it is spoken, as in the case of UN interpreters.

You have job possibilities in the Travel & Tourism sector for language experts, tour guides or start your own travel agency or tour operator. Japanese learners can opt for proofreading jobs, working in conjunction with a translator. Another option is to work as a freelance Japanese language editor. Japanese speakers can be accepted as Flight attendants on long-haul international flights proficient in the bilingual pair English-Japanese. There are many other hospitality positions available at Casinos, resorts or at top-ranked, star hotels from the receptionist to manager, depending on your qualifications and prior experience. Japanese language learners can also opt to work at consulates and embassies as administrative staff. If Japanese is an add on to an existing, competitive, appropriate qualification you could apply for a Consul, Ambassador or Diplomat positions.

Japanese learners who have cleared their C1/C2 with stellar performance can opt to become a Japanese teacher in schools, colleges and universities or become a corporate trainer in their country of residence or choose to be an ESL teacher, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) in any Japanese-speaking country with great translation and proficiency skills. Other than these there are opportunities available for a Japanese-language learner to work in a specialised KPO, BPO as a chat, voice or email support, or to extend support as a voice-over artist to dubbing movies, for commercials and cartoons, and to be an RJ. Learners of the Japanese language could also look at picking up roles such as being a content writer, curriculum designer, instructional coordinators, subject matter expert, a researcher in a variety of domains like social policy, economics, military, technology, culture and export and import houses.

Japanese is considered difficult for English speakers. It rests on three alphabet systems — Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. There are very few people who can speak with a high level of Japanese. Therefore, having these skills can give you a great job and business potential worldwide. Generally, there’s less struggle for positions between Japanese speaking applicants due to the higher degree of proficiency required for the language. 

The Japanese learning can open doors to knowledge and learning of a variety of fields ranging from Anime to Manga, Origami, Karaoke to Bonsai, Sumo Wrestling to Martial Arts, Sudoku to Sony PlayStation & Nintendo, from Sushi, Yakitori, to Tempura from Hello Kitty to Pikachu and Haiku! It can open your perspective on values, customs, religious beliefs, ethics, manners, traditions, and aesthetics.

Agreed Japanese is a difficult language, but you can surely learn it!

Generally, Japanese is perceived as a hard language, but it is not as difficult as you think, even though it differs from European languages. Even without knowing the complete Hiragana (Native Japanese words), Katakana (Foreign words), or Kanji (adopted Chinese characters) scripts one can understand the basics of the Japanese language, with the help of Rōmaji (Romanized Japanese) that describes the Japanese sounds in the Roman alphabet for those who have not mastered the three main scripts. Japanese does not have Nouns, gender, articles, or plural forms: only two verb tenses, present and past. With only five vowel sounds and consistent phonetic spelling, the language is relatively comfortable to pronounce. It just needs practice, lots of listening, reading, and of course, speaking, to master. Armed with the right language learning methods, materials, and motivation, one can accomplish the Japanese language fluency in a matter of a few years, not a decade, as many assume(one can clear an N2 level in JLPT Exam within 3 years).

Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is a topic–comment. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system primarily uses two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名). Latin script is used in a limited fashion, such as for imported acronyms, and the numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals alongside traditional Chinese numerals.

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