Web development in Japan: Web Nihongo
By: Lars Holdaas
Tags: Web, Japanese, Japan, International

Photo by Jase Bloor on Unsplash

Earlier this year, I moved from Norway to work as a web developer in the land of the rising sun 🇯🇵 . Having lived here for a few years a a student, I was already familiar with the country, but working as a web developer in a Japanese-speaking environment posed quite a few new challenges. Some concerning workplace manners, some concerning different approaches to web development best-practices, but most concerning using Japanese as a working language (web development can get quite tricky even in my native language!).

Having struggled through most of my first year, I figured I’d share common words and phrases specifically for web development in Japan. There are already plenty of resources for general professional language, but I never found anything specific to web development, so I figured I’d give a helping hand to other web developers facing similar challenges.

So without further ado, let’s start with the fundamentals.

The fundamentals

関数・メソッド = Function/Method

かんすう/kansuu・mesoddo

Both kansuu and mesoddo are frequently used to refer to functions and methods. Sometimes I’ll also hear アローファンクション (aroo fankushon) to refer to arrow functions, so you can probably get away with saying ファンクション (fankushon) as well.

実装 = Implementation

じっそう/jissou

If you want to talk about your implementation, this is the word you’re looking for. Like a lot of Japanese nouns, you can throw a する (suru) at the end to make it a verb (to implement), and then keep conjugating as you normally would, so for example “way of implementing” would be 実装しかた (じっそうしかた/jissou shikata).

期待値 = Expected value

きたいち/kitaichi

When talking about your functions, you probably want to explain what the expected value would be. Try explaining your functionality and the expected value using this word, and your colleagues will not be holding back the “日本語上手！” (nihongo jouzu) compliments!

機能 = Feature/Functionality

きのう/kinou

Explaining exactly what your functions are expected to do is often as important as what they’re expected to return. But this word also can be used to explain certain features you’re implementing in your branch.

So far so good! Now you should be able to explain to your PO: “that feature is not yet implemented!”: その機能はまだ実装されてないんです！ (sono jissou wa mada jissou saretenaindesu!)

自動生成 = Automatic generation

じどうせいせい (jidou seisei)

A bit on the borderline of fundamentals, but it didn’t really fit into my other categories, so here it is. Good for explaining that your test data is generated procedurally rather than manually created.

UI/UX

Assuming you work with frontend, you’ll want to be able to discuss the things you see on your screen. Even if you’re in the backend, it’s still valuable to be able to understand what the frontend people are talking about so you’ll be able to quickly fix that bug before anyone points any fingers at you!

画面 = Screen/Page

がめん/gamen

画面 is used to describe the pages of your website, although it can also mean the screen itself. In web development it’s often used to refer to the different main pages of your application. For example, 登録画面 (とうろくがめん/touroku gamen) would be the user registration page.

遷移 = Transition

せんい/seni

While it could mean the animations between different states of your application, it is usually used for the transition between pages. So for instance if you want to explain that a certain API call should be made when transitioning to a certain page, 遷移 is the word you’re looking for.

一覧 = List/Table

いちらん/ichiran

Pretty much every case where you’re generating a list of items on your page, and you want to refer to the list itself, this is the word you’re going to use. If your tables are quite list-like, this word also works fine for that case.

棒グラフ = Bar chart

ぼうグラフ (bou gurafu)

One of those nice variations in Japanese. Bar charts are of course referred to with the Japanese word for poles or rods, effectively making them called pole charts in Japanese.

API

The following words are useful when discussing front & back interactions.

同期・非同期 = Sync・Async

どうき・ひどうき (douki・hidouki)

Not strictly API-related, but often used in the same context, we have these words for discussing synchronous and asynchronous behavior. Especially useful when pointing out that React’s setState works asynchronously, so you might be looking for another way of assigning a variable for a certain logic to work.

投げる = Make request

なげる (nageru)

I’m not quite sure if this is slang or not, but most of my colleagues use the word 投げる when talking about making requests to a server. I guess it kinda makes sense to refer to it as throwing, and in a true Japanese fashion makes web development feel a bit more like baseball than coding. Finally, I can call myself a sportsman.

Project related

Sometimes you’ll want to discuss the project itself with your team mates or managers. These words are a bit more meta, but still directly related to web development.

最先端 = Cutting edge

さいせんたん (saisentan)

Want to convince your project manager to use Dart/Flutter for the next mobile app project? Well, you might have to explain exactly what the heck it is, and for that you can use this word. The latest and greatest, no less.

単体テスト = Unit tests

たんたいテスト (tantai tesuto)

Before you can make excuses for why you didn’t write sufficient unit tests, you need to know how to even say the word. Now go and make up some good excuses while keeping this word in mind.

UX改善 = UX Improvements

UXかいぜん (UX kaizen)

Although 改善 can be used for many other words, with the best example being the archetypical Japanese corporate word 自己改善 (jiko kaizen) meaning self-improvement, you’ll probably hear it a lot in frontend development with UX in front of it. This of course means UX improvement. UI改善 is also frequently heard.

成果物 = Finished item

せいかぶつ (seikabutsu)

When discussing with your team mates in front of the scrum board, you might want to point out that a certain feature is completed and ready for shipping. There’s a few ways going about doing so, but referring to the whole feature as 成果物 might give the strongest impression of it being ready to be shipped.