Plain Japanese at Work: The Guideline, Rewrites and Multilingual Safety Materials
Relying on translation alone for work instructions and safety notices means one document for every language on the floor. Plain Japanese, やさしい日本語 (yasashii nihongo), is the other tool: Japanese written with the reader in mind, with hard words replaced by simple ones. The government publishes a guideline and free teaching materials for it. This article covers the guideline's core rules, before and after examples for the workplace, and the multilingual safety and health materials from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
What plain Japanese is
The Immigration Services Agency and the Agency for Cultural Affairs issued the Plain Japanese Guideline for Residence Support (在留支援のためのやさしい日本語ガイドライン) in August 2020; the Agency for Cultural Affairs press release is dated August 28, 2020. According to the guideline's summary, the number of foreign residents in Japan roughly tripled over 30 years and their nationalities diversified. In the surveys it cites, about 63 percent of foreign residents named Japanese as a language they can manage daily life in, and 76 percent chose plain Japanese as a language they would like information in. The guideline's starting point is that plain Japanese works alongside translation. It was written for government notices, but the method applies directly to workplace signs and instructions.
The three steps
The full guideline breaks the work into three steps.
- Step 1: make the text clear for Japanese readers first. Decide what actually needs saying and cut the rest. Keep one idea per sentence. Use a bulleted list when there are three or more items. Avoid roundabout phrasing and repetition. Use katakana loanwords only when there is no suitable Japanese word.
- Step 2: make it clear for foreign readers. No double negatives. Avoid passive and causative forms as far as possible. Use simple words, prefer native Japanese words over Sino-Japanese compounds, and avoid abstract terms, abbreviations and romanized Japanese. Keep the amount of kanji down and add furigana.
- Step 3: have a Japanese language teacher or a foreign resident read the result and confirm it gets through.
Among the guideline's own examples, 在留カード以外は必要ありません ("nothing other than your residence card is required") becomes 在留カードを持ってきてください ("please bring your residence card"). The companion booklet of rewrites covers work vocabulary too, explaining 残業 (overtime) as working more than 8 hours in a day or more than 40 hours in a week.
For speech, the agencies later published Points for Spoken Plain Japanese: sort out what you need to say, listen properly, watch the reaction and adjust, speak in short complete sentences, swap hard words for plain ones (納税 becomes 税金を払う, "pay tax"), and use documents, photos or the actual object.
Before and after on the shop floor
Here is how the rules look when applied to instructions common in manufacturing and logistics. The right hand column is our own wording and omits furigana. When you post these for real, add furigana to the kanji and have a foreign colleague read them first.
| Typical wording | Plain Japanese | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 作業開始前に必ず保護具を着用のこと | 仕事の前に、ヘルメットと手袋をつけてください | Put on your helmet and gloves before work |
| 許可なく機械に触れることを禁止する | この機械にさわらないでください。使うときは、リーダーに聞いてください | Do not touch this machine. Ask the leader when you need to use it |
| 異常を発見した場合は速やかに上長へ報告すること | いつもと違うときは、すぐにリーダーに言ってください | If something is not normal, tell the leader right away |
| 立入禁止区域への進入は認められない | ここに入らないでください | Do not enter here |
| 体調不良の際は無理をせず申し出ること | 体の具合が悪いときは、休んでください。リーダーに言ってください | If you feel unwell, rest. Tell the leader |
| 欠勤する場合は始業時刻までに連絡を要する | 休むときは、仕事が始まる時間までに電話してください | If you will be absent, phone before the start of work |
The pattern is one idea per sentence, formal written endings such as のこと, 要する and 認められない replaced by してください or しないでください, and abstract nouns such as 保護具 (protective equipment) and 上長 (superior) replaced by the concrete object or person. Loanwords such as ヘルメット and リーダー stay because there is no better Japanese word and everyone on site uses them.
MHLW multilingual safety materials
For technical safety content that plain Japanese alone cannot carry, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare publishes free multilingual materials for foreign workers, collected on its foreign worker safety and health page.
- Safety and health manuals for inexperienced workers: industry manuals for training at hiring and when duties change. The manufacturing set is in English, Chinese, Portuguese and Spanish; the industrial waste and security sets are in 13 languages including English, Vietnamese and Indonesian.
- Manga based safety education materials: for people learning safety and health for the first time, with a common set plus materials by industry and task, including nursing care, manufacturing, restaurants, road freight, forklifts and warehousing. They come in 14 languages (11 for some titles), from English and Chinese to Nepali and Khmer.
- Materials by industry: video and text for construction, agriculture, fishing, and shipbuilding and marine engineering, in 11 languages including Japanese.
- Supplementary materials for skills training courses: bilingual texts and course slides for nine 技能講習 courses such as forklift, slinging and gas welding, in up to 13 languages, for use together with a registered training provider's text.
The same page also links hazard signs with illustrations and foreign language text for food manufacturing and metal product manufacturing, and a handbook on safety and health management for foreign workers. Paired with plain Japanese signage, they make induction training and morning briefings land far better. For the wider checklist before a foreign hire starts, see our article on preparing to accept foreign talent.
How Sincero Global helps
Sincero Global Co., Ltd., based in Kawasaki, supports foreign staff and the companies they work for in several languages. Whether you want help writing signs and procedures in plain Japanese or planning safety training, you can reach us by phone, email or LINE.
