I am trying to write an introduction and motivation section for my resume in Japanese.
I’ve been at this for 5 years and can read and enjoy some flowery image heavy japanese at my current level.
I want to express the same passion in my japanese that i could in english, and the best way i can think of is by making use of those literary ways of expressing myself.
When i asked a native speaker to double check my original japanese, she really dumbed it down. Im presenting myself for japanese companies to work in japanese marketing! I need to sound natural and fancy, not like a gaijin doing its best. Im selling myself here!
When i did a reverse translation in deepl, she was much happier with the machine version….it was embarassing. Bad japanese to bad english to passable japanese??? Why am i trying so hard when a computer does better.
She didnt seem to understand that i was not talking about concrete things however.
まだ出会わなかったひと、まだ見えなかった場所の世界
Was too confusing.
“A world of people i havent met and places i haven’t seen” was not comprehensible.
“You mean places in the world you have not seen? That should be sekai no”
“Nono this is an image, its not a real world. Not this world. Like an isekai world! And in /that/ world, these places and people exisy. But not /this/ one.”
“…its confusing if you use both places and world you should get rid of world and just say places you havent seen”
“田んぼは谷と海岸線町に譲られた”
“Fields gave way to valleys and seaside towns”
Made no sense at all apparently?
But deepl understood my japanese and produced a suitable english sentence so?! Who is wrong?
I only ever back-translate, never use auto translation services, so im frustrated.
AAAAAGGH
Help :”c
…………………….
Edit:
Got a lot of responses about traditional japanese companies and the paper resume with the picture and all that. Been there done that and its not relevant to the issue at hand.
In fact you can just ignore the whole resume thing and job thing. I’ve been in similar positions working with japanese people for several years and currently am here in japan doing said work for japanese people, with no issues on my english flowery language etc. This isnt even a resume for a particular company its for like a recruitment freelance things so i can take up some side jobs.
Its more a matter of, i can’t tell if my japanese /actually/ doesn’t make sense(which i guess in the example i gave, it doesn’t, although its annoying to be able to pull 5$ words like 譲る from memory and yet not really know how to say that scenery changed with something more simple other than just a 変わる), or if shes just doing her best to make it as clear as possible for the other person. Which is great, but i need to know. Because “wrong” and “difficult/complicated” are not the same…
She and i have to spend most of our time conversing in Japanese, so when she needs to comprehend something in both languages to produce useful feedback, its a struggle. Greatful for her help but if she neither understands my english nor my japanese, its difficult to trust what shes saying.
Im frustrated that she isn’t able to convey to me why my writing is wrong or what is actually incorrect (so i know for future reference), when my only other resource is a computer and my basic linguistics background from college, which is still obviously leaving me lacking. Speaking of which, lowkey really sad to have people tell me i dont know how languages work when i studied said linguistics. I do /know/, doesn’t mean i studied to be a translator and can put it into practice :”c
So given that, what should i do?
15 comments
You’re trying to literally translate English idioms to Japanese, this is not how language works.
You would never say 雨が下に注ぎました for “the rain poured down” this is just not a Japanese idiom even though it’s translated word for word from English. Same thing goes for “a world of” and “give way to.”
Two different languages have two different ways of sounding sophisticated. This is definitely a you-problem and not your coworkers lacking imagination.
Write directly in Japanese instead of translating and you will sound more natural. If you don’t know fancy literary expressions in Japanese and need to resort to translating them from English, I would advise not trying to use fancy expressions in the first place.
If the native Japanese person is telling you what you wrote is difficult to understand or unnatural sounding, then they’re probably right.
I think there are at least two big misconceptions:
1) Just because an idiom makes sense in English, that doesn’t mean you can translate it word-for-word into a different language and it will be understood in the same way there.
2) Deepl doesn’t “understand” your Japanese, it’s just statistics and guesswork based on a large corpus of text. You can enter random garbage and it will often still produce a reasonable English sentence. E.g. I just put the random kana おうえあす into deepl and it said it means “have fun in a horizontal position”. Machine translation services will try extra hard to make sense out of anything because they’re intended for people who want to understand something in a language they don’t know. They’re built on the assumption that the input is correct, so they can’t be used to verify correctness.
Another thing to consider is that when foreigners say something weird, it’s more likely to be perceived as a mistake by native speakers when a native speaker or someone who appears as one would have gotten away with a “creativity” explanation instead. But this isn’t only your friend, it also applies to everyone else you’re trying to sell yourself to.
Sorry to double down, but your Japanese makes little sense to this native speaker too, though I can see that you’re an English speaker because I’m familiar with those English expressions you directly translated into Japanese. As others have said, you seem to be yet to learn how languages work in general when it comes to literary devices.
Frankly, I think you would be blowing your chance of getting an interview for a Japanese marketing position if you put that on your resume, unless you’re applying to Apple Japan.
Your Japanese probably isn’t “bad,” but it sounds like you still have a bit of room for improvement (as nobody, not even native, is a perfect language user). Keep building upon the foundation that I’m sure you’ve worked so hard to build over the years. You deserve better than Apple Japan!
Outside of the translation issues others have already pointed out, is it really good to use such lyrical language in a resume for a marketing job? You don’t want to be a poet or something and I kinda doubt you would write these things in a resume to an English speaking company. To me it doesn’t sounds very professional to use such flowery language in this setting.
I’m not a native Japanese speaker but I’ve been doing copywriting for more than a decade. Flowery language isn’t good in English either, it just ends up in a $20 word salad confusing people. Marketing and advertising language is simple and straight to the point because it needs to make an impact with no cognitive effort. I would have thrown your resume in the bin if that’s what it sounds like in English as well. It’s much harder to write five good words than rambling for 500. Appreciate your native speaker friend more.
Think of it as a native versus non-native speaker question. You may be competent in understanding and being understood, but you haven’t spent a lifetime forming your Japanese in a matrix of culture and literature. Your best bet is to take a step back and focus on brevity and clarity.
Issues of language and cultural idiom aside, professional introductions and letters of interest are not the forum for flowery language. Samples of your actual past work or references from former employers will highlight your applicable skill sets.
I obviously know nothing about you or the company you’re applying for, but it’s worth bearing in mind that most Japanese companies don’t value standing out or putting and individual spin on things. Japanese resumés and the interview process are heavily standardised. Read some example 志望動機 online to get the idea. As foreigner they’ll already be wary of you being extra work by not being able to fit into a Japanese office. Put their mind at rest by blending in and showing them how you can adapt by first adapting to the Japanese hiring norms.
I’d say you should listen to your co-workers. If you really want to improve your writing, I’d actually start reading literature and keep a notebook to jot down the phrases and expressions you thought were evocative and then try to integrate it into your own writing. If you’re a linguist you understand, language is inherently imitative anyway.
Honestly, I’d suggest paying a tutor to help. Doesn’t have to be a *Japanese language* tutor though. Could be a native speaker who reviews resumes or does creative writing etc. idk.
Helping non-native speakers with their writing can get pretty tiring if it goes beyond fixing basic mistakes. Particularly when the person writing strongly cares about the nuances of their expressions.
“Fields gave way to valleys and seaside towns” no one talks like this…. it sounds a bit pretentious ngl
Here’s an actual Japanese proverb that I think you might find useful if you’re considering working in a Japanese company, 出る釘は打たれる
“What should I do?”
How about when a native speaker tells you your sentence makes no sense in their language and offers you an alternative that does make sense, just go with their alternative
If you want to sound like someone who reads in Japanese, you need to read in Japanese. That’s really all there is to it.
Bro you’re naive N7 beginner level i guess
Japanese ISN’T english with words sounding and being spelled differently. If you really think you can translate word for word, the
> I’ve been at this for 5 years and can read and enjoy some flowery image heavy japanese at my current level.
this image heavy prose must have been something like “風香は夢中になっておじさんのものを舐めあげた。まるで大好きなペロペロキャンディーを与えられたときみたいに、たっぷり口に含んで舐めあげる。”
go outside and tough some grass