by Gaël Malin

To round off our month dedicated to the Japanese language, we would like to look at the reasons why Japanese is a valuable language for translators and the essential to reach Japanese consumers.

Japan has long been a major economic power. The country was even seen as a serious rival to the US at one point, exporting a range of manufactured goods renowned for their high quality, mainly to China, the US, South Korea, Europe, and Taiwan. The country is the 11^th most populated with 126 million inhabitants, and therefore native speakers. About one million people share Japanese as a second language, a low figure compared to other languages, which can be explained by Japan’s long history of isolationist foreign policies that lasted up until the mid-19^th century. Although the country has not experienced major immigration waves, the foreign population has been steadily growing, reaching a record 2.82 million in 2019, according to the Immigration Services Agency. 2.5 million Japanese or Japanese descendants account for the Japanese diaspora, which comprises vibrant communities mostly based in the Americas and Asia, despite being fairly recent.

Current trends reflect a growing interest worldwide in Japan’s culture and the opportunities the country offers. Japan’s attractiveness, which can be labelled as ‘soft power’, has indeed increased substantially in the early 21^st century, becoming more and more of a popular tourist destination with 31 million people visiting the country in 2019, according to Japan National Tourism Organization (they were only 5 million in 2003). The country ranked 5^th after the UK, France, Germany, and the United States on the 2018 Soft Power 30 index, which is based on various polling data such as foreign policy, liveability, cuisine, technology products and global culture. Such data obviously depicts more of a collective perception regarding a given country rather than tangible and actual elements. But even so, positive perception can be used as a driving force to draw foreign investment and boost the export of national products.

This appeal of Japan to foreign audiences has been referred to as ‘Cool Japan’, associated with the idea of a ‘Gross National Cool’. Japanese authorities, aware of the potential benefits to reap economically, have been fully endorsing the concept since the early 2010’s as part of a global and comprehensive strategy aiming to further improve the country’s image.

As a translation market, Japan has room for growth. A huge amount of content has only been translated in English, or, in many cases, has never been translated at all. Both Japanese and foreign companies have come to realise the level of need for Japanese translation. With the Tokyo Olympic Games drawing near and the tourist boom likely to continue in the next few years, one can easily predict that the demand for translation will rise. Translation and localisation of tourism promotional texts, cultural content, technical and medical texts will be particularly sought-after, both from and into Japanese.

Japanese is a language to be reckoned with as far as translation goes, and there are many reasons to be optimistic about the prospects this market has to offer. However, cultural barriers do exist. A good knowledge of your audience and cultural awareness will therefore be key in your endeavours to make the most out of the translation-related opportunities that Japan can give.