Business Japanese: the glow-up (thanks, Shohei Yoshida)

For Fun Friday, I want to invite you to think for a moment about your own long‑running professional struggles. The ones you have worked around for years, compensated for, maybe even joked about, but never quite solved. For me, that was polite and business Japanese.

After more than 30 years of living and working with Japan, I could function just fine. I could participate in meetings, manage relationships, and get my point across. And yet, business Japanese always felt like a trap. I vividly remember trying so hard to be polite that I once said almost the opposite of what I actually meant. I looked over and saw my husband’s eyebrows slowly rise, which told me everything I needed to know about how that had landed. Moments like that are funny in retrospect, but in the moment they are frustrating and confidence‑shaking.

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