I’m a copywriter, editor and translator for a Japanese company that deals a lot with foreign customers. It is what the company relies on, in fact. For this reason, I put a lot of effort into making sure every piece of copy I put out is as pristine as I can make it: grammatically correct, simple yet appealing, informative, etc.
For years now, my colleagues have found it OK to just go in and edit my copy (without me knowing) whenever there is a change they need to put in. Usually, I find these edits months later and have to write the whole thing again. Or sometimes it *does* go unnoticed (particularly in our printed materials when I’m often not shown — despite me asking — the final version).
That, however, I could deal with. The problem is, we have recently started a new project, which they cannot use me alone as the sole English copywriter for as it’s too big. This is fine by me! I was happy to have some new people to share the load with.
The problem is… these people are not native speakers nor are they particularly (in my opinion) adept second language speakers. Some of them just literally copy and paste the Japanese into DeepL, which isn’t *too* bad grammatically but a lot of the copy still sounds very strange as the nuance is odd in English. Others, however, try to write the copy themselves, and it’s quite frankly atrocious.
I’ve tried to express time and time again over the years that even grammatically correct English can still have a strange nuance and that copywriting in English is a skill, much like everything else. But… I feel I’ve been ignored.
However, this time, I truly feel (as we will rely a lot on this project) that this will run us to the ground. So, I’d like to ask if anyone has any advice? I’m at my wit’s end and just don’t want to see the company crash and burn.
47 comments
You’ve tried to express time and time again about this issue. No one listens. At some point, just do the best you can do and cash your paycheck.
What I would do is save a little extra money for the inevitable rainy day. At the first sign of company financial issues, I would be applying for jobs elsewhere.
Trying to change peoples mindset especially in Japanese companies is of no meaning.You may want to consider other options and not waste your energy after it.The only person that would suffer is you.
English (and probably other) language education in Japan is atrocious. It will take a generation or two *if* Japan decided to make some changes. You won’t be able to make their English better and they probably truly won’t be able to understand their English isn’t good enough to be editing stuff without you. Like others have said if you can’t convince them to stop best to prepare to jump ship, or put up with it forever.
I sometimes have had luck with reversing the situation – write them copy in your non-native Japanese. Ask them if they think this would be acceptable to use for marketing materials in Japan, if it would appeal to Japanese customers, if it would give the company a good reputation. When they say no, just emphasize that the reverse is also true – just as your Japanese isn’t very appealing to them, their English is often unappealing for foreign markets.
That kind of demonstration can work because they just haven’t had experience with seeing “bad Japanese” living where they are, so their attitude is kind of “well, it’s good enough isn’t it?” “It’s so めんどう to have it checked every time” “It’s just a small change though…” etc. It doesn’t work every time, of course, some people are just stubborn, but it might help a little.
Edit – I think it also sometimes works slightly because I’m “humbling” myself by showing my non-native Japanese. It can make it seem less like I’m talking down from up on my high native English platform, and more like I’m sharing with them “see? Non-native languages are hard for me too, it’s ok, we can admit together that we need help”
Write an article in Japanese about this topic and present it in Japanese business media? This is not just your company, it is very common.
The only other option is to have a client complaint lodged about the language.
This is why I hate TOEIC and Eiken. People get certs then suddenly think they’ve mastered English
If the previous releases are public, see if you can find some public dialogue from users commenting on the poor quality of the English. Translate those comments into Japanese and present them. They’d definitely take you more seriously if they knew it was having a negative impact on their image.
Actually, my company has the same problem, but we also don’t have any English-speaking customers so I don’t think it’s such a big deal.
Just let them do their thing and collect your paycheck, fighting these kinds of issues is not worth it if you want to maintain the status quo in the workplace.
Not only with English. My friend is a college professor teaching Spanish and has degrees on it (also a native speaker) and a Japanese coworker is hellbend on telling her she “is wrong about her Spanish”
At some point my friend just stoped arguing with that woman. Nothing good never comes from it.
> grammatical correct
🙂
If I were in your shoes, I would simply stop putting in the effort. Clearly, your efforts are not being appreciated or even respected. If the management/ your coworkers think they know better than a native speaker, that’s a big red flag to me. The best strategy is probably to keep your head low, make your life easy, use of deepl whenever you can (cause they won’t notice either way) and, if you want a job where you can take pride in your work, start looking for a better company.
I got sent an advertisement by a very well-known company in Japan and asked to check it. I won’t name the company or the advertisement, but the slogan they were using (let’s say it was for Calpis) was something like “Calpis – it is the one which wets your throat!”
I sent them back a few examples of a better phrase that still conveyed the same concept they were looking for (which they thankfully provided me with) and the response I got was “what’s wrong with this one? Is it grammatically incorrect? If it’s not then what’s the issue?”
Honestly this stuff is why 90% of the English you see in Japan is awkward at best. What does a native matter when Grammarly says it’s fine?
Lmao how dismissive do they have to be of foreigners to think they know better than the only actual English speaker there? And the fact that they make changes to your copy without consulting or informing you shows that they think you’re too stupid to realize they’re not being business appropriate.
I know it’s hard to push back the feelings of having pride in your work when you have a job where you create things. But you need to choose your battles carefully and consider if it is really worth the added stress.
As long as you clearly warned them that having a non-native speaker doing the work will not guarantee native speaker quality, I would just let them do what they are going to do.
If you delivered work and it was changed after that time without you knowing, they really can’t blame you. And we all know that in Japanese work culture, it is all about finding and avoiding who is going to take the blame.
In the first few years of my work, I was constantly battling with Japanese coworkers “correcting” my work. Often, after spending time finding the perfect industry jargon, it would be corrected back to a literal translation of the katakana English.
I learned it’s just not worth the fight.
Make the documents uneditable if possible, it sounds like it’s a shared document, in Microsoft word you can lock it from editing. Or only share them PDF files that are locked for editing.
Let them know that you will allow them to edit through you. Make it the new process.
I was doing this, not in a big, way. But for Japanese. My team member asked for final review of all Japanese copy. So I just follow that rule, even if I spruce up copy, it goes to him after.
Goddamn, this post brought some flashbacks.
Japanese people thinking they know better than English natives is everywhere, it seems.
I worked in Kumagaya around the time of the Rugby World Cup. I was there when they brought out [these banners](https://i.ibb.co/V91Lk54/image.png) that are literally *all over the city* now in all shapes and sizes.
What the general public will never know is that when the first draft version of these came across my desk in a 回覧, the designer had come up with the genius idea that “Kumagaya” looked cuter in English spelled with a C instead of a K. I had to have a very uncomfortable conversation with a colleague explaining why this was not acceptable. They had to send a very awkward email back to the designer, along with the explanation that a native English speaker (me) had advised that this spelling was extremely inadvisable. Even then, the designer refused to change it and multiple more drafts with the C spelling got made until a phone conversation happened, including the definition of “cum” and assuring them that English speakers would definitely take notice of the unfortunate spelling, and they were finally convinced.
I didn’t have a say in the actual design so the font is atrocious, but I saved Kumagaya from becoming one of Japan’s greatest memes
(reposted with better image link)
You probably can’t. There’s this odd phenomenon in Japan where a lot of people expect English to look or sound a certain way. And because English is not prominent here that means a lot of people’s expectation of what English looks like is incorrect. And because the people higher up making the decisions are usually Japanese and have this weird image of English that will look more “natural” to them they’ll go with that even if 10 native English speakers tell them that it’s not correct.
Honestly there doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do. This get’s posted on the complaint thread pretty much every time. “I give manager a perfect English sentence, he or she changes it to sound more appealing to a Japanese person which sounds unnatural or is downright incorrect, and there’s nothing I can do.” Yeep.
If they’re circumventing the native speaker and hiring copyrighters that are not fluent, they’ve brought it upon themselves. Like, no offense, but while you think that the fate of the company is in your hands, the fact that you are not given control of these things says that the company doesn’t think the same way about you.
I’m not in the same industry but given a similar situation i would find somewhere else i’m useful.
You probably need to be more serious about complaining to the higher up to find out who the culprit is. I mean, whomever is doing the unauthorised edit is basically jeopardizing your finished work so that alone should be a significant problem in any workplace.
At the end of the day, if you’re the only one in your company who can see the problem, then you’re also the only person who can raise voice until something is done about it, regarless of whether the project will end up as a failure or not.
Since everyone has a bunch of grown-ass adult and reasonable suggestions here, I’ll add some chaotic and immature ones on what I would do:
1. Create a fictional online copy editing company website, a simple WordPress site or whatever. Make sure you register the domain as someone else or anonymous
2. Since the edits are on a webpage, you now have permission to send them solicitation emails from your new awesome copy editing company.
3. Try to sell them on ongoing “protection monitoring” for the low cost of (about half your salary) and tell them turnaround time is usually 24/48 hours due to being overseas
4. At work, suggest that there are mistakes and maybe they should think about getting second full time salaried person to help you (never suggest a company) but you understand it’s too expensive
Spam them often and enjoy the extra night shift and salary if it works out.
According to the most recent ethnologue (2022) only ~2.2% of Japan speaks English. It’s ranked 2nd to last by percentage of those countries that were studied, with China being the lowest at 0.9%. Although, given the differences in population, this puts China’s number of English speakers at around 10 million while Japan’s is at around 2.77 million. Similarly, India is ranked fairly low with only about 10.6% of the country speaking English. But given it’s population, that translates to about 128 million English speakers (more than the population of Japan).
And with foreigners making up about 2.3% of Japan’s population (statista 2020), it just doesn’t seem like English is a priority within the country so it might be hard to convince your coworkers otherwise. Especially considering their English ability is probably much greater than most of the people they know.
I would talk to your boss and say you are happy for the help on this project but as a native speaker you are concerned that quality will go down and it will adversely affect sales in foreign markets. I would ask if that all final mock ups could be delivered to you x number of days before final version is due, and that your hanko is needed before it can move forward with production.
The problem you are coming across though is Japan is fairly seniority based, and because you are younger, they may not be willing to give you this responsibility.
The other option is trying to version stamp various things with a date version, so if edits are made they must have an updated date added, or published on share point or something. But again, your youth is working against you. So maybe dress like an old man.
At least in my company, a lot of older Japanese people (40s+) greatly overestimate their English language ability, and that’s why they think they know better. They won’t hesitate to change something in English if they can’t understand the English and will just file it under “this foreigner doesn’t understand the Japanese”.
I face a similar problem a lot at work. I get “my way” sometimes and sometimes I don’t because the boss used this phrase and his feelings would get hurt if we didn’t use it🥺
I leave evidence that I don’t agree with X just to make sure I don’t take the blame for it and move along.
Do I get a little irked when someone goes back and changes something to “was happened”? Yes, but they don’t pay me extra to seethe over it, so why should I?
I understand taking pride in your work and that you are concerned about the potential effect it could have on the company’s image (maybe you could also mention this to them?), but unfortunately, some Japanese companies are really just not open or receptive to this kind of feedback. You either jump ship, where you can’t guarantee it will be any better, or just learn to deal with it.
Just save all your edits and works. If they come and bitch at you for bad edit. Show them your work which is basically proof that someone changed it after. Pretty much all you can do. Just move the noose (responsibility) to someone else and make sure if things go south it’s not on you.
「英語上手」should do the trick
I’d ask to speak to the manager of the project or the department in private and voice out your concerns. If you have any credibility (which you should, given this is your domain) and/or goodwill built up, the manager would probably listen and try to figure out something.
Otherwise, this is just way above your paygrade and you’d be happier just letting the company crash and burn.
My Japanese colleagues don’t use DeepL or else because their English is pretty good, but some of my clients do and it’s a pain. Spoiler we often have communication issues that don’t end well.
Perhaps some outside opinions might help.
Ask your friends to send the company anonymous comments to their inquiry e-mail address complaining about the quality of the English.
I put up with this shit every single day. Grammar mistakes are understandable, but I always see inconsistent spellings of the same words (including company names), inconsistent/incorrect spacing and punctuation, and overuse of specific words (please, thank you). Most of this stuff wouldn’t even be an issue if they used frigging spell check.
I seriously can’t believe a country that prides itself on rules and doing things in the exact same way can make such a half-assed attempt. It’s beyond negligence and not caring. It’s like they want to screw it up.
I also deal with this and am in a similar line of work. It’s ridiculous, and especially even more atrocious when they then claim their English is correct over yours. Uh…
What I found works best is that, instead of saying it’s wrong or how to fix it, you tell them what effect their error has on the reader.
Eg ‘if you use this word, you are insulting them’ or ‘this sentence may result in negative social media attention because of the nuance it gives’.
Once had a sports cheering app where ファイト was transliterated as ‘fight’ instead of something like ‘cmon!’ or ‘you can do it!’. Got picked up by a major British sports media account on twitter who lightly berated the violent choice of wording (because yelling ‘Fight!’ at a sports event is NOT a good idea, ever) and the project flopped because of the negaw media.
Good luck with that. I can’t even get the JTEs I work with to use my corrections on the materials they make 95% of the time. “This is the picture of breakfast.” and such. I gave up and just roll with it while my soul dies a little each time.
Then again, when I write something in Japanese they’ll tell me it’s right even when it actually isn’t, so at least the incorrect language usage gets to go both ways! 🙃
Not your problem!
What is one of the first signs of a phishing/spam email? Incorrect grammar.
We had a group doing that last year and they sent out their edited email to a number of customers in Asia. Many of those customers reported back to us asking if this was a legitimate email, were we hacked, or was this a phishing email using our name due to the bad /non-business language used in the mailing…. and if it was legitimate, wtf?
This was seen as a hit on our reputation and the people who did this were severely reprimanded. Direction came down from senior management that emails/communications going out need to be checked by native speakers prior to sending and no edits can be made after that check is complete.
You might want to use this sort of response that companies/customers will have to bad English and the hit it makes on your reputation as a company as an example to senior management.
I just chuckle to myself when i see stuff like the Pansy brand shoes
仕方がない, you tried your best, just cash the checks and let the company worry about itself.
Could be worse. I had a manager once who forced me to use her email templates that were full of mistakes. It was painful.
I have two words for you:
Premium Malt’s
It’s the weirdest thing about Japan: no other nation has greater commitment to manufacturing excellence, yet it’s full of companies that permit massive runs of top quality products to go out without getting reviewed by a native speaker of English. The reason obviously has something to do with some aspect of Japanese culture that I can’t begin to understand (this includes most aspects of Japanese culture, BTW.)
This is why I hate being asked about non-native speakers being appointed to positions where high-level English is required. You can’t really answer that without looking like the “native speakers are always better” native speaker, even when that’s not what you say.
I mean, it’s hard to tell them to do a better job of translating when they don’t have a handle on the language. It’s always going to be Deepl or Grammarly or Google Translate. At least, as foreign speakers, do they use subjects properly in the Japanese? Japanese teachers/students never grasp a hold of that. Heck, some of them read too fast and never check the **Japanese** to make sure if something is a question or not, or what tense it is. **In their own language!**
Working in the same capacity, I have been blessed to have Japanese coworkers/superiors who will just take my word at “it sounds weird please don’t”. I think I come into this privilege as a freelancer and working with small businesses, but it has not always been that easy and there are always sticking points in translation. I would agree with the phishing email point, and also wonder if this would not be an appropriate time to use that good old gaijin card? Do your best to drive home the point that part of the reason so many Japanese companies rely on specialists to do their foreign-facing work is because the Japanese are indeed so very different and special and foreigners simply won’t understand the phrasing. I’m not suggesting you pander, of course, but perhaps you can find ways to turn it into one of those backhanded compliment things for diplomacy sake.
“You’re English is absolute dogshit Sato-san.”
“So soori”
The Engrish must flow.
A linguist, translator and interpreter here, English is my second language, and Japanese is my fourth.
TL;DR: I don’t think there’s any malicious intent on their side, they genuinely don’t see what’s wrong with what they’re doing, or even how it could be wrong in the first place. Your perception of the English language and theirs just don’t match. Technically, they’re two different variants of English with different sets of rules and words. Explaining this to them would be very difficult, it’s a difficult concept to grasp.
I agree with the suggestion to give them something written in Japanese and try to explain it to them that it’s impossible to remove the “unnatural” feeling every text written by someone who acquired that language has vs a text written by a native speaker — unless you have a native speaker review it or write it altogether.
And the nitty-gritty nerdy part for those interested.
There are several things involved here: the way we learn languages, the way we perceive them, and the way we use them. There are also different variants of English, and different “circles” of countries based on the role English plays there. The first circle includes the countries which have English as their primary language: UK, USA, Australia, etc. The second circle includes countries where English either is a second official language, or has been integrated into the native language of that country, so Philippines, Singapore, certain states of India fall into this category. Their variants of English are different lexically and grammatically from those in the first circle, and those differences are usually fixed and aren’t viewed as incorrect. The third circle includes countries where English exists only as an acquired language, isn’t recognized governmentally, and is not a part of the native language or culture. The rest of the world’s countries belong to this group. With Japan, it’s a bit weird: it used to belong in the third circle, but with the huge influence that the western culture and the English language of the recent decades (starting from post-WW2), more and more words and cultural phenomena are finding their way in and become adopted, so we could say Japan is transitioning from the third into the second circle. However, these words and phenomena do not remain unchanged. The Japanese language and culture alter them (our favorite katakana-go says hello). Here’s the main thing: neither Japanese nor native English speakers acknowledge this change, or even realize it happens. That’s why whenever a native speaker sees the +ALPHA or the W-POINT sign, they don’t understand what it means. Equally, for a Japanese person, VIKING means something very, very different compared to a native English speaker. The words look familiar, but they have different meanings and usage now. And we do not realize it, and our brains sure take those shortcuts and don’t urge us to look up the oh-so-familiar word that in fact is not what it seems to be anymore. It works both ways, it’s the same for them and for you. They don’t see what’s wrong with what they wrote because they did it through their perception, while you see it — you’re a native speaker. You don’t see what may be missing in your text because you may lack the perspective on how English functions in Japan, and they see it — they were taught English in Japan, and there’s this whole katakana-go thing.
My company helps other Japanese companies market their products and services for a foreign audience, and this stuff happens on the regular. Mainly with our clients who think they know better than the people they paid because they believed they didn’t know better.
We always try once to warn them, but if they insist, we just go ahead with whatever they want. Customer is king! And all that mumbo jumbo. As long as there’s no legal trouble, right?
Whenever we have to do this, I always make sure to point out to the people in the middle that I take no responsibility whatsoever for anything negative that occurs because they decided to ignore my advice.
Godspeed, my fellow copywriter/editor/translator friend.
I work as an engineer in an all Japanese company. I’ve been asked to help on translations for several projects. Every time my input is ignored and a non-English speaker with a dictionary app convinces our non-English speaking bosses to go with their dreadful suggestion. The last time they asked for my input I politely but flat-out refused to help. That’s not really an option for you but I’m saying that this is a universal, unsolvable problem.
I agree with everyone who is saying to just take your check, and keep records of changes to your work.
My son’s school have signs by the road that says “xxxxxxx Elementaly School”, and they have about 3 of those signs in the perimeter of the school. I could have said something about it, but there are just some things you just gotta live with.
99% of the English you see on ads, on websites etc is not here for being read and understood. This is just random foreign and mysterious language used for brand image, for sounding classy and global. Since the average Japanese is fed shitty English all the time, they end up thinking it’s acceptable English.
Is your company the one putting up those god awful “Enjoy Senior” posters everywhere?