by Kie, July 2022

If your question is can we living in Japan without Japanese skill. The answer is yes. 

You can get a job without needing Japanese. But unfortunately as Japanese are not really familiar with English (compare with other Asian countries) I can say your opportunities to work in Japan with zero Japanese language is limited. 

If you are native English speaker, get your English teaching visa is the easiest way to entering Japan without Japanese language knowledge, but you have to face thousands other native speakers as your rival because the process to get teaching visa is difficult. Other than that, if you have special skill like engineering and IT, you could try apply to foreign owned companies like Google or Apple. 

Of course, getting here and finding work (especially in teaching) is a breeze even with zero Japanese, but there's a catch once you're here; once you are in Japan for a while I recommend that you learn at least conversational Japanese because otherwise you will close a LOT of gates. Even foreign owned companies (apparently) require Japanese level for their basic communication. Because even in the foreign companies, they have Japanese employees there and we need to be socializing and communicating with them, so at the very least N3 of Japanese level is really helps.

You can do it without Japanese, but with Japanese is MUCH better.

Even if they don't tell you (and mostly they never will), Japanese people actually feel a lot more comfortable when you can talk to them and communicate in their native language. For many Japanese, even if they can speak English, the thought of having to speak English all day can be stressful, so if you can speak Japanese with them (especially they are high potential client), you will instantly put them at ease and open up possibilities you would never have discovered if you could only communicate in English.

 I am living in Japan for almost 7 years now, I started learning Japanese in my university degree and has N3 level Japanese when I moved to Japan, and started over my Japanese learning in Japanese School for 1.5 years. Frankly I could say, spent 1 year in Japanese School in Japan is much better than spent 4 years learning Japanese at university in your home country. So learnt from my experience, I personally advice you to take any major you want to pursue as your career journey, and fly to Japan to learn Japanese at least one year. Then you have anything in your pocket to start your career in Japan, with larger opportunities than non-Japanese Speaker. 

One of our partner is a Japanese School called Naganuma School with strong historical story -they literally the first Japanese School in Japan- will help you to understand more about Japanese language, not only Japanese in grammar but also how Japanese impose their language in the business culture. Naganuma School also provide many option of lecturer that can adjusting to your time availability, located in the heart of Tokyo, Shibuya, Naganuma School will give you more than study but also many experiences that you need to living in Japan. Kindly contact us if you want to know further about Naganuma School.