The whole syllabus, before you join

申します, おります, 担当しております. Only the humble axis, learned through interview sentences rather than a table — it's most of what an interview asks for, because you spend the hour describing your own actions. The full system is 2.1.

Every question in a Japanese interview comes off a line of your 職務経歴書, including the gaps you were hoping nobody would read. You mark the lines that will be asked about before rehearsing a single answer.

Name, current role, and the one thread that connects your experience to this job. The failure mode is never being too short — it's still talking at ninety seconds because you never planned an ending.

Something specific about their business joined to something you have actually done. 御社 when you're speaking and 貴社 when you're writing, and interviewers do notice which one you used.

In that order, so nobody has to ask 「それで、ご自身は何を?」 — the follow-up that catches everyone who describes what the team did instead of what they did.

Pointed forward: what you want to do next, never what went wrong at the last place. The same facts, turned around — and the turning is a language skill, not an honesty problem.

「完璧主義です」 is not an answer. A real weakness plus what you do about it, because 「それで、どう対処されていますか」 is always the next thing out of their mouth.

「特にありません」 ends an interview badly. Two per round, different at each round, that show you have already pictured yourself doing the job.

Salary expectations, the gap in your history, 「なぜ日本で働きたいのですか」, 「何年くらい働くご予定ですか」 — and the question that is really testing whether you'll push back.

Three knocks, 「失礼いたします」, where to stand, when to sit, what to do with your bag. Plus the online round, where the framing, the lag and when to unmute are the etiquette.

1.1 gave you the humble half because the interview needed it. This is the whole system: 丁寧語, 尊敬語 and 謙譲語 are not three politeness levels stacked up — who performs the action picks the verb, and getting that axis right retires most keigo mistakes at once.

The rule that strips your own manager of their title the moment an outsider is listening. An interview never asks for it — there's no third party in the room — so this is the first genuinely new thing the job demands of you.

お疲れ様です, お先に失礼します, 承知しました, いってらっしゃい. Perhaps thirty phrases carry most of the social traffic in an office, and they are pure recall — until you have to produce one at the lift with a 部長 in it.

はい, ええ, さようでございますか — placed on the beat, because silence in a Japanese conversation reads as disagreement rather than attention. Includes why なるほどですね isn't the safe option people think it is.

Thirty seconds: your name, where you sit, what you'll be doing, and one line that makes you a person. A different job from the interview version in 1.3, and running the interview one at your own welcome meeting is a common way to start badly.

「順調に進んでおります」 is flawless Japanese that tells your manager nothing. Where you are, what is blocking you, and when it lands — in that order, in under twenty seconds.

Re-reading the instruction back without sounding like you weren't listening the first time. The difference is whether you propose your understanding or ask them to repeat theirs.

You bring the problem and a proposal, and the answer changes what you do. Treating 相談 as a request for approval is how capable people get read as passive.

Early, one sentence of apology, then straight to the impact and the fix. This is where good speakers most often sound worse than they are: the apology swallows the information.

More time as a proposal with a reason attached, not a plea for mercy. Includes the version where you have already missed it, which is a different conversation.

Cushion phrases in live use rather than on a list — 恐れ入りますが, お手すきの際に, 差し支えなければ — plus the deadline you have to name even though naming it feels rude.

Declining what you genuinely cannot absorb this week, in a register where a flat no isn't available. Includes 一度持ち帰らせてください for when you can't decide on the spot.

Taking the floor, and interrupting without cutting anyone off — よろしいでしょうか, 一点だけ. Most people who go quiet in Japanese meetings have the sentence ready and no way in.

Acknowledge, then say the thing. The failure mode isn't rudeness — it's cushioning the objection so thoroughly that the room hears agreement and moves on.

The opening, taking a message, and transferring a call. Fixed forms, and far easier once you have said them aloud a few times — which is the whole problem with learning them from a page.

Your own 部長 loses their title and their honorifics the moment a client is on the line. The single mistake that most reliably marks someone as new, and the one 2.2 was laying groundwork for.

宛名, 挨拶, 用件, 結び — Japanese business email is a form you fill, not prose you compose. Including how to chase something for the third time and stay pleasant.

Pitching the detail at the listener rather than at the subject. Practised against three listeners who know progressively less, with the same underlying material.

The lift, the lunch queue, the five minutes before a meeting starts. Includes how to leave a 飲み会 early without it costing you anything.

Structure, signposting, and finishing on time on purpose. Japanese presentation convention builds to the conclusion where English front-loads it, and mixing the two loses the room in the middle.

「確認のうえ、本日中にご回答いたします」 is a complete answer and most people don't know it. Also: hostile questions, and questions that are really a comment.

Saying a senior person is wrong, in a language with grammar for hierarchy built into the verbs. The register does most of the work; the content can be blunter than you think.

陳謝 → 事実 → 原因 → 対策, in that order. A serious Japanese apology is not more feeling than an English one, it is more structure — and getting the order wrong reads as evasion.

Holding a position while leaving the other side somewhere to stand. Includes the conditional forms that make an offer without committing to it.

Making a case for yourself in a register built for modesty, and asking for something specific. The hardest register problem in the syllabus, which is why it is last — and the interview in Module 01 was the easy version of it.