Which path or grammar should I study for Business Japanese?

Bunpro
#1

Hello all! Coming back to bunpro after many years since I currently live in Japan and am starting a job in a Japanese company pretty soon. My Japanese is alright since I got an N2 like 2 years ago, but I haven’t studied in so long and unfortunately my business Japanese is awful. I had to speak Japanese in the interview and the hiring manager told me my Japanese is definitely good enough but I need to start using better japanese which to me means grammar and general vocab.

Back to the point, does anyone have a recommended path for grammar? Particularly for someone who just wants to focus on business level vocab? The textbooks seem to just barely scratch n2, and I don’t want to learn all of N1 considering its very likely many of those grammar points would only be found in books rather than business conversation.

Thanks for reading and I hope to get some help :slight_smile:

3 Likes
#2

Tbh, I don’t think bunpro, or anything targeting JLPT, is going to be too helpful since you’re already at least at N2 level. JLPT materials don’t even scratch the surface of business Japanese. Bunpro doesn’t even have a grammar point for させていただく.

Since you live in Japan, you’re probably better off with some books aimed at young Japanese adults learning ビジネス敬語 for their first job. (But don’t buy the ビジネスマナー focused ones that spend too much time on teaching you how to tie a necktie and keep business cards organised.)

Maybe the Business Japanese Test is an option too. Unfortunately there isn’t that much studying material available for it.

You could also pay for lessons on iTalki or something; actually talking to a teacher is probably the best way to get an idea of what to improve.

4 Likes
#3

There is a lot of N0 stuff that we are focusing on this year, させていただく、させてもらう、etc etc, but as a bit of an interim, there are actually quite a few good Youtube channels that focus on this type of stuff.

Here is one example of literally hundreds of channels devoted to this topic (a lot of natives struggle with this too).

If you’re N2 and have quite a bit of experience speaking, then stuff like させていただく ‘I would have you let me XYZ’ probably make perfect sense even if you’ve never heard them, so I would suggest business or interview channels aimed at natives.

8 Likes
#4

Thanks for your message! I guess I’ll check out some books.

1 Like
#5

My problem is I’m not very good at studying videos because I’ll watch them and kinda move on. A big help for my Japanese originally was using wanikani annd bunpro because it captivated me to keep studying and is already set up in a simple format to practice.

2 Likes
#6

In that case, the Italki recommendation is probably gonna be the best option for you. There you’ll find teachers that focus on Business Japanese, and I believe you get 3 free trials, which helps in finding the right teacher for you. They’ll probably have their own recommended books.

Good luck!

1 Like
#7

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but out of curiosity, has the idea of creating a Business Japanese Proficiency Test (BJT) deck ever been discussed? I’m not sure how true this is, but I’ve spoken to recruiters in Japan and a few of them have mentioned that more universities and jobs are starting to list BJT as an alternative for JLPT. However, there are way less resources out there for it than JLPT. Wondering if it’s something Bunpro might consider adding resources for in the future.