Nihongojouzu

All Japanese All The Time

Sorry for the post paucity - I have translating coming out of my ears. Here is something to keep you going in the meantime - All Japanese All The Time - the blog of a fellow styling himself Khatzumoto, whose learning approach focuses on three basic techniques:

1. Learn how to write the 2000 or so basic use kanji (yep - Heisig time)
2. Learn to read by learning words/kanji in context, ie in SENTENCES, using spaced repetition
3. Do EVERYTHING in Japanese ALL THE TIME.

I think Khatzumoto's approach to maximising and repeating input is spot on, and when I think of my halcyon days as a JET, with no cable, no Amazon Japan, no Google, and no other gaijin, I was fortunate enough to have, and make use of, the "all Japanese all the time" environment. Although I picked up speaking and listening to a decent level, I definitely didn't apply myself as well as Khatzumoto, whose approach is not only characterised by sheer dedication but also by wit and refreshing honesty. Reading AJAAT will not only give you some great tools for learning Japanese, it will give you a gentle kick in the arse and make you WANT to learn:

No one is saying you’re going to be amazing at it on your first day, or even your first month or even your first year. But you know what? The surest way to fail is to quit doing it. If you can’t skate, or program, or speak a language, it’s not because a supernatural white ball of gas in outer space doesn’t want you to. It’s not because of your parents — leave them out of it. And it’s not because of the task itself — don’t be a wusspot. It’s because you haven’t done it enough.

A lot of times we say someone is “good” at something. I think this is inaccurate. It would be more correct to say she is “accustomed” to it. We don’t get good at something so much as we get used to it. So, I’m not “good” at Japanese, I’m just accustomed to it. I’ve seen those kanji before, I’ve heard those words arranged in that sequence before, I’ve seen that sentence pattern a zillion times. When you’re “bad” at something, it’s not so much that you’re bad at it as it is that you aren’t used to it. And the way to get used to it — to get good at it — is simply to do more of it.

 

Office Japanese - the Telephone: Part Four

Answering the phone and transferring a call is straightforward, but when you have to take a message it becomes a little trickier. Here are the basics.

Part Four    Answering the Phone and Taking a Message

１。名乗る

はい、XXでございます。

２。相手を確認する、あいさつをする

YYのZZでいらっしゃいますね。
いつもお世話になっております。

-Same as the beginning of Part Three

３。名指人を確認、おわび

AAでございますね。
申し訳ございません、あいにくAAは…[and continue in 4.]

４。情報提供する、理由・予定

出かけておりますが４時頃には戻る予定でございます。

Or:

出張しておりますが、木曜日には出社いたします。

-Don’t just say “She’s out at the moment” – provide the caller with additional information before they ask for it
-Don’t however say WHERE the person is (they might be at a competitor’s office!)
-And then immediately make a suggestion for a course of action, as per 5.

５。意向を伺う

（戻りましたら）お電話を差し上げるようにいたしましょうか。

Is the person in a hurry?

お急ぎでいらっしゃいますか。

Perhaps you, or someone else, can deal with it:

よろしければ用件を承りますが。

-Volunteer to call the person back – don’t wait for them to ask
-Don’t forget to get the caller’s phone number:

念のためお電話番号をお願いします。

６。復唱確認する

復唱させていただきます。
（電話番号）、YYのZZでいらっしゃいますね。

-Repeat the message to make sure you have the details correct, and to reassure the caller of the same (Name, Phone Number, Concerning What?)

７。名前を告げる

かしこまりました。私BBと申します。

-Let the caller know who they are talking to so they have the information for future reference

８。処置について確認する

AAが戻りましたらお電話を差し上げるよう申し伝えます。

AAが戻りましたらYYのZZ様からお電話いただきましたことを申し伝えます。

９。終わりのあいさつをする

失礼いたします。

ありがとうございました。

Part Five will feature a whole bunch of set phrases not covered in Part One, Part Two, Part Three or Part Four.

Office Japanese - the Telephone: Part Three

Part One and Part Two dealt with making a call. Today we deal with handling an incoming call, or you can think of it as what the person at the other end of the line was saying in Part One.

Part Three    Answering the Phone and Transferring the Call

１.名乗る

(phone rings - pick it up within 3 rings)

お電話ありがとうございます。XXでございます。

-Before 10am you can start with:

おはようございます。XXでございます。

-If the phone rings more than 3 times you should say:

お待たせいたしました。XXでございます。

-Saying thank you at the beginning has two purposes: (1) if you dive into announcing your company/division etc the caller may not be ready, and miss what you say; (2) saying thank you acts as a buffer and starts proceedings on a friendly note.
-Answer the phone as quickly as possible - within 3 rings is OK, but 2 is better.
-Always have pen and paper ready to take a message. Don't just have them sitting on your desk somewhere, when you pick up the phone you should also grab a pen and be ready to write.
-Speak cheerfully and clearly

2. 相手を確認する

(the caller gives their name and company)

YYのZZ様でいらっしゃいますね。

-If the caller doesn't announce themselves:

恐れ入れますが、どちら様でいらっしゃいますか？

-Make sure you confirm whom the caller is - it is sloppy if you just put the call through and say "It's someone from Toyota"  and means that the next person has to ask again.
-You already have a pen in your hand - use it.  Get into the habit of writing down the caller's name and company every time

３．あいさつをする

いつもお世話になっております。

-Say it with feeling!
-It doesn't matter if you have never done business with this company before - just use the set phrase! (you don't actually mean "God be with you" when you say goodbye in English - same principle)

４．名指人*を確認

AAでございますね。かしこまりました、少々お待ちくださいませ。

-If there are two people in your company with the same name, confirm which of them its is by offering the personal name of the most likely candidate:

鈴木由香でございますね。

５．取次ぎ

AAさん、YYのZZ様からお電話です。

-Hit the 保留　button
-Stay in polite mode when transferring - the last thing you want is to screw up the transfer and have the caller hear you say "鈴木さん、NTTのやつだよ“

Tomorrow - Part Four -  dealing with the caller when the person requested isn't  available.

*名指人 (なざしにん)

Office Japanese - the Telephone: Part Two

Yesterday I posted an introductory piece on the fine art of placing a business phone call in Japanese.

As you will recall, we left proceedings at the point where you, the caller, had just given your name and company name and had asked to be put through to someone.

Part Two    Being Put Through to the Other Party

１．相手を確認する

XX様でいらっしゃいますね。

-Necessary if the person coming to the phone simply says "はい”, or if you don't catch what they say, but not required if they announce themselves clearly.

 

２．名乗る

私、YY社のZZでございます。

-note that 私 in this context has the super formal reading わたくし

３．あいさつをする

先日お忙しいところありがとうございました。

If you don’t have a specific event to refer to (for example, when you last met) you can offer a more generic greeting:

いつもお世話になっております。

およびたてして、申し訳ございません。

-Obviously if you have had some interaction with the other party it is a good idea to mention it and give the call some context. Other possible greetings:

この度は、弊社の○○をご購入いただき、誠にありがとうございます
先ほどはお問い合わせありがとうございました

-Politeness and brevity are key
-呼び立てる　means to ask a person to come, or in this case, to call someone to the phone

４．用件を伝える

今、お時間をいただいてよろしいでしょうか。

早速ですが＿＿＿＿の件につきましてご連絡いたしました。

If you think the matter will take a while, forewarn the other person and give them the option of dealing with it later:

お時間長くなりますが、ただ今よろしいでしょうか？

What follows is the meat of the phone call and while equally polite it won’t necessarily be as formulaic. I’ll keep things simple for the moment, skip to the end of the call, and provide some useful phrases in a later article.

５．相手の理解を確認する

以上、＿＿＿＿＿で、よろしいでしょうか。

Equally you could say:

もう一度、要点だけ、繰り返させていただきます。

(and then summarise the details)

Two examples:

では、来週の金曜日にお見積もりを提出させていただきます

 

以上、予定していた打合せですが今回はキャンセル、後日ご連絡ということで、よろしいでしょうか？

６．終わりのあいさつをする

どうぞ、よろしくお願いいたします。

 Just before hanging up: 失礼いたしました. And it wouldn't be out of place to have ありがとうございました in there too.

-Pause a moment before gently replacing the receiver – don’t just clunk it back into place.

OK - you know what to say when placing a call - what about when the phone rings? We'll look at that next week in Part Three - Receiving Calls.

Office Japanese - the Telephone: Part One

Good phone manner is an essential part of working in a Japanese office, and handling phone calls is one of the testing grounds of your Japanese skills – you can no longer rely on the gestures and facial expressions you may use in face-to-face interactions, and your listening skills are paramount because you don’t have the luxury of visual context. On the flip side, work phone calls usually fall into patterns which you can practice (though you obviously can’t meet every contingency) and unlike in-person conversation, you can write out what you want to say in advance.

Today’s post is the first in a series of articles on practical office Japanese based around language samples taken from an actual office etiquette　manual (yes, I have one in my possession, and you too can learn the secret rituals of the Japanese office!).  Even Japanese people can have trouble adjusting to the change in politeness required for office phone calls, but remember, it is just a matter of practice, so find a Japanese speaking friend and practice! (But you’ll have to wait for Part Three of the series or the call will be very one-sided…..)

Part One    Calling and asking for someone

１．自分の名前を名乗る

XX社のYYと申します。

-Speak slowly and clearly
-Put a smile in your voice
-Be prepared to spell out your name slowly , e.g. 「ジャ・ス・プ・リ・ザ」
-Just as Japanese people “spell” their names by reference to other kanji, e.g. for the name 加地　（かじ）：　「加えるの加に地方のち」, there may be occasions when you need to do the same, for example when the connection is bad. When required, I say the following: 「忍者のジャ、寿司のス、プリンのプ、理解のリ、正座のザ」. Be careful which kanji you choose – when spelling out the name Banner for example, 「馬鹿のバ」would not be a wise choice.

２．あいさつをする

いつもお世話になっております。

-Use a sincere tone - don't jut throw it out
-If it is before 10am you can throw in おはようございます before いつもお世話になっております。

３．名指人の取次ぎを依頼する

恐れ入れますが、ZZ課のBB様をお願いいたします

When you don’t know the name of the person you are after, state your business and ask for the person in charge:

恐れ入れますが、XXについてお聞きしたいのですが、係の方お願いいたします。

Just a short lesson today – Part Two will cover calling a person directly, Part Three will be receiving and forwarding a call and Part Four will deal with explaining that the person asked for is not available.

Easy-peasey, Japanesey

I have been going though my file of "things to post to Nihongojouzu" and I had a moment of nostalgia when I hit Easy-peasey, Japanesey, a page of advice on learning Japanese written by Edmund Edgar, the man behind the Three Wise Monkeys language resource page. I had the pleasure of meeting Ed way back in 2000 when he was kind enough to put me up for the night when I was passing through Saitama (you can read about that meeting in the Genki English Tour Diary). Not only a lovely chap, Ed makes good use of his grey cells and he has put together a vocabulary learner tool called Japanese Wordinator ("...because you're too lazy to write vocabulary down in a little notebook...")  which you can even use from your mobile phone. However, the best part of Ed's site is his collection of mnemonics, and his advice on how to use them:

....the more bizarre and twisted the better. And under no circumstances should you throw them away. (I made this mistake.) Or file them, which comes to the same thing. (I made this one too.) Pin them up on your walls. Sellotape them to your friends. Get drunk and hide them from yourself. (That way you will be reminded of them every time you open a book, move a cushion or try to figure out why your cornflakes aren't pouring out of the box in the usual way.)

He even has a page on Tochigi-ben.

Scary Totoro

The films produced by Studio Ghibli have long been favourites of those studying Japanese, not only for the enigma of whether Nausicaa was wearing pants or not, but also for the inspiring characters, imaginative storylines and marvelous animation (just don't bother watching Geddo Senki - it sucked BIG TIME, although I did feel well rested after snoozing through most of the second half). The very name of the forest spirit "totoro" in Tonari no Totoro,  is young Mei-chan's mispronunciation of the Japanese word for troll, torōru (one less translation issue for those working on the Japanese version of Lord of the Rings). I also seem to recall that Mei, instead of saying tomorokoshi, said tomokoroshi, which is only amusing when you listen with your Japanese ear and realise that she transformed a "cob of corn"* into "friend-killer". And this segues into the real reason for the post - I just wanted an excuse to post the most disturbing Totoro image I have ever seen. If you value the innocence of childhood memories please don't click on this link. (thanks to Deas)

*トウモロコシ
**ともころし/友殺し

Japan Times Job Fair 2007

The Japan Times is holding a job fair in Tokyo on Friday October 12, at the Izumi Garden Gallery in Roppongi. A whole bunch of organisations will be in attendance, from IBM and Bloomberg to Oxford University Press and the World Bank. The fair is targeted at people proficient in English, but given there are a number of Japanese firms I'm guessing the skillset is actually proficiency in both English and Japanese. For readers looking for a job where they can use their Japanese skills this sounds like a great chance to see what kind of opportunities exist.

Japanese English that isn't English at all

What Japan Thinks is a marvelous website which features Japanese opinion polls and surveys translated into English. The man behind the blog, Ken Y-N,  provides a fantastic service by providing the English speaking world with not only facts and figures about Japan but hard data on what the average Japanese person thinks. Ken always links to the source data so keen beans can check out the original Japanese for themselves. One of his recent post deals with 和製英語 - Japanese style English. Although a lot of words enter the Japanese lexicon from English and retain something close to their original meaning, there are many sneaky katakana words which look like their English forebears but whose meanings are vastly different. For example, the "Note" in DeathNote (デスノート）actually means notebook (but I'm onboard here: while DeathNote sounds edgy and sexy,  DeathNotebook sounds nerdy and desperate). The film クローズド・ノート is another example - an English note is neither closed nor open because it's a single piece of paper, but a Japanese ノート is a book.* These false friends lie in wait for neophyte learners who employ that often useful linguistic strategy "when in doubt, just katakana-ize it", so before you wedge your English foot in your Japanese mouth check out the list on What Japan Thinks and be careful out there.

*Don't Japanese kids have a hard enough time learning English without having movie posters confusing them too? Next to the big English title "Closed Note" we have a picture of....an open book.