Native speakers or people who leaned and can use Spanish.
What kind of jobs do you do?
Does your job in japan require the use of Spanish?
Have you had other jobs in the past in Japan that utilize Spanish?
I’m just curious if any Spanish speakers here in japan utilize their language in the workplace or utilize their Spanish in other ways in Japan.
27 comments
I would assume there would be Spanish translation and interpretation jobs out there but probably little demand for it.
Spanish speaker from California here, I never use Spanish, actually kind of concerned about it degrading bc lack of use. Still listen to lots of Latin music, but I almost *never* speak it, bc I don’t have a chance. I met some people at a festival last year for people of Okinawan descent around the world, I spoke Spanish to them, and I’ve spoken it at a Peruvian restaurant near me a few times. Btw, I’m an English teacher, like most other Spanish speakers (especially those raised in the US) are. I’m not sure there are many chances to speak Spanish in a work related context unless you’re a university instructor or work for some big company like Toyota that exports products to Latin America/Spain/etc. I hear a couple high schools in my prefecture teach Spanish, but idk what the qualifications would be, and if they’d even give you a visa (if needed). If anyone cares, I can probably dig up the names of the schools, and you could contact them yourselves.
Sell paella
I know a Spanish person who has a consulting company related to Ai. He works with Spanish, US and Japanese companies. His office is near mine and he’s super friendly and gregarious.
My office has a consultation window to help foreign residents in the city, but we only do English, Portuguese, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Our Portuguese speaking worker helps Spanish speaking individuals who come in (who prefer that over English or Japanese).
I wonder if there are jobs that are aimed for speakers of Portuguese but could take a Spanish speaker if needed?
Programador por aca. Nunca he usado español para trabajar. Tengo un amigo de España que trabaja en una empresa de testing para videojuegos, presta ayuda en bugs relacionados a traducción.
Colombian here. I am a Software Engineer and I’ve been living here for 4.5 years.
My job does not require Spanish, not even English, It’s 100% Japanese. 
IT. Only used it to talk to other spanish speakers in the company. But I have met many companies in the green energy industry that are basically spanish companies or full of spanish-speaking people.
Spanish speaker here but not using at all my mother tongue. For a living now I am in the middle of opening/reforming my business(still time for this)
Not me but my former colleague. She used Spanish to communicate with our factory in Mexico. This was a sales/project management position. Not automotive industry, but the automotive industry also has a lot of factories in Mexico. One needs to speak Japanese and English too, generally.
Programmer here. My current company is based in Texas (working remotely from Tokyo), and a bunch of coworkers are from Argentina/Uruguay, so I do use Spanish quite often. It’s the first time since I did some internship back in Spain 10+ years ago that I use Spanish at my job, which is interesting.
Outside work, one of my groups of friends here is Spanish/Mexican, so I also use it often when hanging out with them. I met them through my university/random programming events/friends of friends.
There’s also few communities for Spanish speaking people in Tokyo like “supein club” スペイン倶楽部 where I’ve met a lot of Spaniards or Spanish-speaking Japanese people.
We have a bunch of Spaniards at our hotel, from chefs to sales staff. They are actually Catalan. We all speak English at work however
No joke, the prison always needs Spanish speakers for translation and interpretation. My Spanish is weak and I hate being put on the spot because no one else can do it. Pay isn’t great though since it’s government work
Work on IT. Not using my Spanish at all, only when I call my family back home and talk with other friends.
You can probably find something to use your Spanish with, but you’d have to search.
English teacher hahahahah
Non native Spanish speaker here. I used to be a Spanish to English translator but now work with Japanese to English so…nope, not using Spanish at all.
Used to use it a bit when visiting the salsa dancing community or a couple friends but no time for that anymore. So I’m saying adios to my Spanish skills 😂😂 I wish there were an easy way to maintain them!
I work at a publishing company. I don’t use Spanish for anything there but my Japanese co-workers have learned to say, “Una cerveza por favor,” and “No me mames, guey,” when we go out drinking.
I teach English haha. But sometimes someone wants to take Spanish lessons so that’s nice. I live in an area with lots of South Americans so I can use it every now and then when out shopping or going to restaurants.
It makes its way into alot more of my older students classes as we get into more lessons focusing on Latin roots and the such. If my uni aged students ask me about dual language study, I always recommend Spanish and a lot of them do try it out.
I’m a native spanish speaker, but also speak english and just a little of japanese. I do hotel cleaning witch requires almoat 0 communication.
Two of my classmates in interpreting school were native Spanish speakers – one from Spain, one from South America.
AFAIK neither got jobs relating to Spanish after they graduated. One I believe ended up working for the school itself and the other iirc was turned down for a company due to not having a degree in the end (and it wasn’t have been a job related to Spanish anyway), then chose to go home and study more. I think one briefly worked part-time at a helpdesk for a mobile game fielding calls from English and Spanish speaking customers.
Unrelated but there used to be a man from Spain in my current company too, but it’s a fully Japanese-speaking environment.
The demand really isn’t there for native Spanish speakers. I imagine there must be a very small niche for translating Spanish media and for university Spanish teachers, but that’s probably most of it. There’s a lot more demand in Spanish-speaking companies for Japanese speakers, but those jobs won’t be in Japan.
A good friend of mine is from Peru. He only speaks Spanish (some survival Japanese, zero English) so you can bet he uses Spanish in his job. That being said, he is a salsa dance instructor, so we’re reeeeally talking about a niche here.
Venezuelan here. I work in cybersecurity. Don’t use Spanish at all. I remember there was a company called Vector 4 or something like that someone I knew worked for and it was a Spanish company which sometimes they used Spanish. It was like renewable energy related.
I work in hospitality (hotel reception) and a lot of Spanish speakers work with me
I’m Bolivian and I’ve met a lot of Peruvians working at stores such as IKEA or Costco who speak Japanese and Spanish, not English. It’s always nice to talk with someone in my native language and I can tell they like it too.
I work in Defense. And I have a mountain climbing buddy who works at a WarHammer store. Jajajaja
I worked to a Spanish restaurant at first, met other Spanish people and japanese people interested in Spanish.
I enrolled a Japanese school to learn the language, sustained also doing some YouTube videos and finally transitioned into a software developer. I would recommend you going Spanish meetups in Tokyo rub by either Ignacio or Ruben, you will meet interesting people there that could serve as links for somewhere, and of course meetups in general are a good idea to do some connections, speaking from experience I got mine from a german woman I met in one lol
Good luck!
I work in the medical field, I’m from Spain. I rarely use it at work and I only use Spanish when communicating with some of the Brazilian strippers who speak it when I’m in Yamaguchi Ken. There is a large Hispanic community in Fukuoka though.