Common Japanese Business Phrases(1998)

Jay Rubin

The Japanese language encompasses a remarkably elaborate inventory of entrenched, often idiomatic, conventional phrases--phrases which tend to evade the grasp of people not privy to the whole code or accustomed to the situations in which that code applies. Nowhere is this more true than in the Japanese working world, where real communication (as opposed to communication of the ceremonial or purely formal variety) tends to be framed in concise if not elliptical units and where the best kind of understanding is invariably an implicit one. In a working culture where standard business phrases, laden with implications quite beyond the reach of the uninitiated, are bandied about like badminton birdies, the hapless non-native will be left watching from the sidelines unless she or he can get some solid guidance on how and when some of the more important phrases are used. That's what this book is for.