Japanese covering letter format

[Hokuto-shinken]

[font="Comic Sans MS"][color="DarkOrange"]Just wondering does anybody know the correct format when writing Japanese letters

When applying for a job in my home country formatting can be extremely important, so I am sure it must be in Japan. I have mastered the formatting for Japanese envelopes, which are written vertically on the envelope instead of horizontally in the western world and have made my own template to print the post code, company name and the address in the correct places.

However, I have tried searing for letter templates but can`t find any good examples. Not even a photo of the standard letter layout.

Any information would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

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[Charles]

I guess I'll have to put my rirekisho kit back online. It has resume forms, and a description of a sample cover letter, along with some discussion of the language used in the letters. Note that this link to the 1.7Mb PDF prohibits hotlinking from other sites, so you might need to reload the link your browser a second time before it will load, you might even have to copy and paste the URL to a new browser window. Sorry for the inconvenience, but some sites deep-linked to my content so I had to take some security measures. Let me know if you need help with it.

[Hokuto-shinken]

Thank you very much for going out of your way to help. I will give you some reputation points

By the way, what is your pictue of the lips it is quite scary, what is it from.

Thanks again

[Hokuto-shinken]

I did not know a lot of those polite words. Japanese has to the most polite language. If I wrote the translation to an enployer in my home country, they will think, he is too polite.

Do you think it is best to hand write the letter like in the example or to print it?

Thanks

[Charles]

I did not know a lot of those polite words. Japanese has to the most polite language. If I wrote the translation to an enployer in my home country, they will think, he is too polite.

Do you think it is best to hand write the letter like in the example or to print it?

Thanks

Obviously, this letter format is targeted at Japanese companies in Japan, and do not translate into English. Writing letters like this depends a lot on your Japanese skills. If your kanji writing ability is poor, it might be better to type it. People do make snap judgements about you from looking at your handwriting, and even the handwriting of a skilled gaijin like me who spent years studying calligraphy can probably hope only to write as well as a 7 year old kid. This is probably not the impression you want to make, although some might consider this meager level of ability a major accomplishment for a gaijin.
And writing formal letters in Japanese is tricky, the notes were scanned from an excellent book "Writing Letters in Japanese" and this was one of the last, more difficult lessons. Even simple letters have rigid formats and tons of formal expressions. Deviation from standard formats is to be avoided, originality is not going to help you.

BTW, my avatar is from some university researcher who did high speed videos of various amusing subjects, this one was from a guy blowing raspberries. I exported it to ImageReady and did major work to get a nice loop. I was going to use the video of a guy getting slapped (you should have seen how the shock wave propagated through his face) but I couldn't make it loop nicely.

[Hokuto-shinken]

Obviously, this letter format is targeted at Japanese companies in Japan, and do not translate into English. Writing letters like this depends a lot on your Japanese skills. If your kanji writing ability is poor, it might be better to type it. People do make snap judgements about you from looking at your handwriting, and even the handwriting of a skilled gaijin like me who spent years studying calligraphy can probably hope only to write as well as a 7 year old kid. This is probably not the impression you want to make, although some might consider this meager level of ability a major accomplishment for a gaijin.
And writing formal letters in Japanese is tricky, the notes were scanned from an excellent book "Writing Letters in Japanese" and this was one of the last, more difficult lessons. Even simple letters have rigid formats and tons of formal expressions. Deviation from standard formats is to be avoided, originality is not going to help you.

BTW, my avatar is from some university researcher who did high speed videos of various amusing subjects, this one was from a guy blowing raspberries. I exported it to ImageReady and did major work to get a nice loop. I was going to use the video of a guy getting slapped (you should have seen how the shock wave propagated through his face) but I couldn't make it loop nicely.

Hi Charles,

Thanks again for your comment. Yes, of course this letter format is targeted for Japanese companies in Japan. I found it interesting to read the English translation, and realised just how polite the Japanese language can be. If I were to write this to an American company they would think I am too polite.

I would never in a million years, think to write a letter in pen. It is something you never do back home. I think my written Kanji skills are pretty good and I am self taught. Sometimes my stroke order is a little off though.

At first I was a little off put by writing a letter in Japanese because I am not bilingual and would have to check with the dictionary and online tools for my grammar e.t.c…. I have sent quite a few letters to big companies written in polite English, but have not really received any positive replies. I thought I can best express myself in English and I was sure there would be some English speaking staff in these international companies. However, I was surprised that even the biggest companies sent me back letters in pigeon English, horrible formatting, no name for reference and no signature or hanko. Also about 1 to 2 months after I sent them a letter. One company did contact me by phone though, but unfortunately the job they had was not for me.

I know, as in your document, most Japanese people or fortunate people from aboard who are ex-students can call on their professor, friends or colleges to land them a good job. For somebody who has none of these contacts it is very hard to secure a job or so I have found.

So, I think it is best to write a letter in Japanese and I might get a half decent reply this time. I am going to print my letters. I want to apply for more than one job because it is not good to put all your eggs in one basket so to speak. Also I think it looks more professional.

Thank you very much for your help.

wwwwwwww That is funny about the high speed videos. It looks like a cursed video.

[Hokuto-shinken]

I need to send a fax today and was wondering, is the fax layout the same as the covering layout? Is there a special document like in the west?

[Kanchou]

SUPER BUMP.

Does anyone know how to type text onto this form? I'm can't even think about handwriting a rirekisho...

[Charles]

SUPER BUMP.

Does anyone know how to type text onto this form? I'm can't even think about handwriting a rirekisho...

It's a PDF, so you could use Acrobat Pro and type over it (I presume there are other PDF tools that could do this). Or you could import that page into Photoshop and put type on another layer. Or if you're really desperate, I could probably provide the rirekisho pages in some other format, but I warn you, they're much larger as high rez TIFFs than as a PDF.

When I used the kit for my own resume, I did hand write it. But I cheated. I wrote on tracing paper over the form, and when I made a mistake, I just wrote it again right next to the error. Then I scanned it in, overlaid it on the form in Photoshop, and erased all my sloppy kanji and slid the clean ones into place. It looked great when I printed it on my laser printer, just like I'd hand written it perfectly and made photocopies.

[Kanchou]

DOH, the free PDF program I used won't make the text forms I put in it clear (there's no clear border option), and when I tried to use the simple text box/insert text option, it doesn't like Japanese...

And I can't afford Adobe Pro...

[Charles]

DOH, the free PDF program I used won't make the text forms I put in it clear (there's no clear border option), and when I tried to use the simple text box/insert text option, it doesn't like Japanese...

And I can't afford Adobe Pro...

Well I don't know what software or OS you're using so I can't advise. Maybe you could set the form fields to a white border and it wouldn't print?

Keep at it, I'm sure you'll figure out something. Worst come to worst, you could always write your text in a word processor, print it, and physically cut and paste your text into a printout of the form, then photocopy it.

[Kanchou]

You were right... making them white works, but "no color" doesn't.

[Kanchou]

The program I'm using (Nitro PDF Pro) has got to be the most unstable piece of crap I've ever used.

Damn thing keeps crashing and taking 20 minutes worth of my work with it at a time, despite the fact that I saved my work constantly.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a "Self PR" section on this rirekisho form...

[Charles]

The program I'm using (Nitro PDF Pro) has got to be the most unstable piece of crap I've ever used.

Damn thing keeps crashing and taking 20 minutes worth of my work with it at a time, despite the fact that I saved my work constantly.

Also, there doesn't seem to be a "Self PR" section on this rirekisho form...

Well.. not all forms are identical. The sample form filled out on pg3 of the PDF has a PR section, but the actual form seems to break that stuff out into various sections of pg2.

Good luck with your P.O.S. PDF software. There must be some other package that's more suitable, everybody does PDFs these days.

[Kanchou]

I wonder if I could just put the same info into a text file... this is really more trouble than it's worth.