I can’t imagine that I can work in Japan without being able to speak any Japanese!!
If you are a foreign “GAIJIN” engineers who are interested to work in Japan but without knowing any Japanese, you can stop by and spare a few minutes to read through my blog here. Sounds like a commercial advertisement, haha.
Overall living in Japan can be regarded as difficult for foreigners. I got experience of living abroad but related to Japan feel different. I’ve come across comments on various websites from the foreigners complaining about how it’s difficult to find an apartment, to apply for a credit card, to open a bank account, to communicate in a hospital etc. I can say life is inconvenient without knowing Japanese. But our company is great; they get me into the company by requiring my English ability and technical experiences only. And they will provide (pay for) the basic Japanese course to make my daily life easier. There are a lot of chances to practice inside the company. May be I don’t have much talent in language; I still cannot master the simple conversation very well after a few months of Japanese lessons. My company also gave me a lot of support and help in getting my apartment within a very short period.
I am lucky that I joined a good team, my coworkers and managers are so patience and tolerate that they will translate / explain anything that I cannot understand to English. Of course, it is essential for us to understand all the requirements and deliver the corrected products to the client. Overall it is an interesting experience for me to work in Japan.
