When you think about expanding your business in Japan, the language is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. 

Doing business and succeeding in Japan requires a good understanding of the Japanese market. 

As for the translation, we point out four important things below.

1. Japanese are cautious and tend to be sensitive to unnatural Japanese and hesitant to introduce it.

As a national characteristic, Japanese people are very cautious and they want to avoid problems with new things especially people in big companies. 

The evaluation system in many Japanese traditional companies is the minus points system. Also, lifetime employment systems are widely adopted.

From these two types of systems, the idea of promoting in one company without making mistakes at work is widely accepted.

2. Translation tools such as Google Translate and DeepL are still inadequate for business use

In recent years, cutting-edge technology has made translation easier. There are sophisticated translation tools such as Google Translate and DeepL.

However, it is still only a supporting tool for business use especially when you translate other languages into Japanese.

If you are thinking of doing business using only translation tools, we strongly recommend you reconsider it.

3. In marketing and sales, language differences can be problematic in some cases

If you are reading another language yourself, you can use tools such as Google Translate to translate the text without any major problems.

However, it is necessary to translate carefully the parts related to the law, money, and service provision.

Otherwise, you may run into problems with your client.

Use Marketing Competitor Analysis Guide to learn how to analyze competitors.

4. In marketing and sales, we need to change the sentences to one that sticks with the user, not a simple translation.

It is possible to translate into natural Japanese by using a traditional translation company as a partner.

However, as many of you may know, small differences in sentence can make a big difference in results in marketing and sales. 

It could be difficult to find a translation company that will pick and choose the right words to translate for marketing and sales.

CoDigital, inc. is full service digital marketing agency based in Tokyo, Japan. We are providing our services in Japanese, English, Chinese, Vietnamese and Thai. 

Our main services are listed below, but we also offer flexible support for sales, legal and other business needs.

If you are interested in our company, please feel free to contact us.