Translate an employment contract into Japanese

What changes when an employment contract goes into Japanese

An employment contract cannot be carried into Japanese word for word. Several differences affect how an employee or an HR team in Japan will read it.

• Legal register, not keigo. Many people expect honorific language; in fact Japanese contracts use a neutral, prescriptive written style, with set phrases such as 〜するものとする ("shall"). Keigo belongs in the covering letter, not in the clauses.
• No grammatical plural. Japanese has a single form, so "the employee" and "the employees" look identical. Where the plural carries legal weight ("the parties", "successors"), it has to be made explicit, for example 両当事者 for "both parties".
• Clause numbering. "Clause 4(2)" becomes 第4条第2項. Cross-references must follow that pattern throughout the document.
• Full-width punctuation. Commas and full stops become 、 and 。, quotations use 「」, and there are no spaces between words.

Source-law concepts with no exact Japanese match

The real difficulty lies in concepts tied to the law of the source country, whether French, British or other. Thémis uses the closest Japanese term, but some have no perfect counterpart and deserve a careful read:

• Permanent and fixed-term contracts: rendered as 期間の定めのない雇用契約 (contract without a fixed term) and 有期雇用契約 (fixed-term contract).
• Probationary period: 試用期間. The concept exists in Japan, but the rules on ending it differ; the translation states your clause, it does not adapt it to Japanese law.
• Collective agreement: 労働協約, not to be confused with 就業規則 (the company's work rules).
• Country-specific benefits such as statutory sick pay schemes, French RTT days or salary sacrifice: translated descriptively. Check that the wording still makes sense to a Japanese reader.

Dates are another decision to make. Japanese documents may use the imperial era (令和) or the Western calendar. The translation keeps the dates as written in your original; if the employer in Japan prefers the era system, adjust it after delivery.

What Manuce delivers, and what it does not

You receive your contract in Japanese in the same format as the original: Word stays Word, PDF stays PDF, with headings, numbering and pay tables where they were. The text runs horizontally, left to right, as in most current Japanese contracts. The file remains available in your client area.

What Manuce does not do:

• No sworn or certified translation. If an authority, embassy or court requires a translation certified by a sworn translator, Manuce is not the right service. Check with the receiving body before ordering.
• No adaptation to Japanese law. Thémis translates the contract as drafted. It does not turn it into a 労働条件通知書 (the written notice of working conditions required under Japanese law) or check local compliance.
• No scanned PDFs. A PDF that is only an image, with no selectable text, cannot be read. Start from the Word file or a PDF exported from your word processor.
• No seals or signatures. The signature block is translated; affixing a seal (印鑑) or signing remains with the parties.

Japanese carries a surcharge: a ×1.6 coefficient applies to the per-word rate, counted on the words of your source file.

Preparing the file and checking the result

Before uploading:

• Send the final version, with comments and tracked changes resolved: any text left in the file will be translated.
• If the contract states amounts (月給, monthly salary; 賞与, bonus), make the currency explicit in the original so that "£2,800 gross" cannot be confused with a yen figure.
• Personal and company names are usually transcribed into katakana. If the company name must stay in Latin script, check this in the free sample and again in the delivered file.

After delivery:

• Open the file on the computer that will print it. Empty boxes in place of characters mean a Japanese font is missing on that machine.
• Check the 第○条 cross-references and the sensitive clauses: non-compete (競業避止義務), confidentiality (秘密保持), notice and dismissal (解雇).
• For a bilingual contract signed by both sides, add a clause to the original stating which language version prevails.

In practice

1. Export the final contract as Word or a text-based PDF (not a scan).
2. Upload it and select Japanese: the quote appears straight away.
3. Read the free sample paragraph to judge the style and key terms.
4. Pay, then download the Japanese contract from your client area.
5. Have the sensitive clauses reviewed by someone who knows Japanese employment law.