This morning I worked in a nice neighbourhood cafè when a guy sitting next to me chatted me up. He mentioned something along the lines that in Tokyo the Starbucks is full of people working there, not just drinking coffee (as I did). I asked him when had he last been there – and it turned out that he and his wife had lived in Tokyo for 4 years. And loved it.
He loved: “They had hired me for good money – and then after 2 months the manager said to me: you know, we really wanted you to do this job – but,
honestly, you’re messing it all up! What the hell are you doing?”
He broke into laughter while he added: “And he was right. I realized I had to learn about Buddhism and the overall mentality. Before that, it was bad. I ‘communicated’ in English but also in a German way. I got myself an interpeter – and
I asked her to make my English “Japanese”.
My brain had started listening closer. This was an interesting take he had there. You might not be an overall good language learner or not feel up to the task of learning Japanese from the ground, however, you can use an approximation: Leaning in mentally and in content and behaviour into what is relatable and understandable for a Japanese person.
He shared that it developed into a way of working where he prepped his slides in EnglishEnglish / GermanEnglish and the interpreter would review, then tweak the slides alongside helping him to use analogies etc. that would help him reach his communicative goals.
Problem solved.
In a pragmatic way.
So, if you’re in a different culture… and you do not really have the time or energy to learn the native language,
this might be a great proxy:
- some standard polite phrases
- studying body language / POV of distance / leaning into that
- “Translate” your English into Japanese-English
This might indeed lead to a better in-depth understanding that is quickly available – and you can go for more later.
In international marketing, this will probably not be the best solution to reach your target group
– as to trigger the right emotions, and associations for that needed, you will need to tap into the culture from the inside. Step one is to acknowledge that and then work your way towards an effective bridge building process. You might work with backwards translation (as we did at o8 at some point for a communication that happened in Farsi – which no one on our team could speak or understand). This can be sufficient to check for ‘on-brand’ effects – but I would definitely always recommend to aim for a local partner in combination with real interest for the other culture.