Why we’re building this

The gap this fills

Japanese study material is built around reading and listening, because that’s what proficiency tests measure. So people arrive in a Japanese workplace able to parse a contract but unable to say “I need two more days” to a manager without it landing as an excuse.

The hard part was never vocabulary. It’s choosing a register in real time, under mild social pressure, out loud, with no chance to redraft. That’s a speaking problem, and speaking is the one thing textbooks, flashcard apps, and the JLPT don’t ask you to do.

How the practice works

Every scenario runs the same loop, because repetition against feedback is what moves speaking ability:

• Pick a situation and a listener. Talking to your manager, a teammate, and a client are three different registers. The context comes first.
• Answer out loud. No multiple choice, no typing. You practise the part that’s actually difficult on the day.
• Get specific feedback, then run it again. Which verb was wrong, which honorific slipped, where the cushion phrase should have gone — plus what a colleague would have said.

What you can practise

Three modules, each built around situations that come up in a real working week:

• 職場での会話Workplace Conversations
• 就職面接Japanese Job Interviews
• 敬語とビジネスマナーKeigo & Workplace Etiquette

Who’s behind it

Work Ready Japanese is an independent project, built by people who have had to do this in Japanese themselves and wanted the practice tool that didn’t exist at the time.

Questions, or a workplace situation you’d like to see covered? Write to hello@workreadyjapanese.com — it reaches a person.

Where it’s up to

The app isn’t released yet. The scenarios, feedback model, and the three modules above are what’s being built now, and the waitlist is how the first group gets in. Joining it gets you an email when the module you picked opens, plus the free material promised on that page — and nothing else.

We’re not going to pretend a launch date we don’t have. When it’s ready, you’ll hear about it once.