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IT English & Japanese Phrases for Developers 2026 - Meetings, Code Reviews, PRs, Incidents, Standups, 1on1s Deep Dive
- Authors
- Name
- Youngju Kim
- @fjvbn20031
- Why English + Japanese still matter in 2026
- 1. Self-introduction - The onboarding hello
- 2. Standup / Daily
- 3. Code review - Requesting changes politely
- 4. PR writing - Title, body, Conventional Commits
- 5. Incident response - SEV1/SEV2 phrasing
- 6. 1on1 - One-on-one with your manager
- 7. Requirements meeting - Resolving ambiguity
- 8. Data analysis reports - KPI, north star, lift
- 9. PTO / OOO - 育休, 有給, vacation
- 10. Declining - Saying NO gracefully
- 11. Apologies - Calibrating responsibility
- 12. Praise - Beating praise inflation
- 13. Email - Greetings and sign-offs
- 14. Slack / chat abbreviations cheat sheet
- 15. Running a meeting - Agenda, action items, recap
- 16. Interviewing - System design, behavioral STAR
- 17. Governance - RFC / ADR phrasing
- 18. Postmortem - 5 Whys, lessons learned
- 19. Resigning / changing jobs - Graceful exit
- 20. Negotiation - Promotion, salary, compensation
- 21. Global meeting manners - Timezone, accents, repeat requests
- 22. Korean dev community case studies - Going English
- 23. Japanese dev community case studies - IT katakana mapping
- 24. ESL tone calibration - "Less direct ≠ less effective"
- 25. Closing - The next 90 days
- References
Why English + Japanese still matter in 2026
The 2026 Korean developer market splits into two tracks. One side is companies where English is the de facto operating language — Toss, Coupang, LINE, Dunamu. The other is the Japan-anchored career path through Mercari, Yahoo Japan, LINE, DeNA, Rakuten. Both demand the same micro-skills beyond writing code: drafting an elegant PR description in English, or reaching consensus with a Japanese senior manager in 30 seconds during an incident.
This guide lays out 21 scenarios side by side: Korean intent → English (formal + casual) → Japanese (敬語 + business casual). The goal is less about memorizing phrases and more about tone calibration — reducing cultural friction without softening directness.
1. Self-introduction - The onboarding hello
Day one in Slack #introductions or the first team meeting. The most common Korean-speaker mistake: opening with an apologetic tone like "I'm new here." Global teams treat new members as assets, not liabilities.
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First introduction, joining as backend | Hello team, I'm Youngju, joining as a backend engineer on the Payments squad. | Hey folks, Youngju here, new backend on Payments. Excited to be here! | はじめまして、本日付でPaymentsチームにバックエンドエンジニアとして入社しました金と申します。 | はじめまして、金です。今日からPaymentsでバックエンドやります、よろしくお願いします。 |
| Previous experience with payments | Previously, I led the payment infrastructure team at company X for three years. | Last gig was leading payments infra at X for ~3 years. | 前職ではX社で決済基盤チームを3年間リードしておりました。 | 前は X で3年くらい決済の基盤やってました。 |
| Looking forward to working together | Looking forward to working with all of you. | Stoked to be working with you all! | 何卒よろしくお願い申し上げます。 | よろしくお願いします! |
Common Korean-speaker pitfall: "I hope I can contribute" reads as low confidence in English. Pair intent with value: "I'm here to help us ship faster on Payments."
2. Standup / Daily
Async standup (Slack text) or live Zoom — the core is Yesterday / Today / Blockers, three lines. The Korean narrative pattern ("there was this issue yesterday, so I ended up...") inflates the message.
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yesterday: payment API migration | Yesterday I worked on migrating the payment API to v2. | Y: shipped the payment API v2 migration. | 昨日は決済 API の v2 へのマイグレーションを進めました。 | 昨日は決済 API の v2 移行やってた。 |
| Today: integration tests | Today I'll write integration tests for the new endpoints. | T: writing integration tests for the new endpoints. | 本日は新エンドポイントの結合テストを書く予定です。 | 今日は結合テスト書く予定。 |
| No blockers | No blockers. | No blockers. | ブロッカーは特にありません。 | ブロッカーなし。 |
| Staging env access blocked | Blocked on staging env access — could someone from SRE help? | B: staging env perms — anyone from SRE? | ステージング環境の権限の件でブロックされています。SRE の方、ご対応いただけませんでしょうか。 | ステージングの権限まだ通ってない、SRE誰かヘルプ! |
Tip: In English-speaking environments, "Y / T / B" abbreviations are widely used. In Japan, "昨日 / 今日 / 障害" or "やったこと / やること / 困りごと" appear often.
3. Code review - Requesting changes politely
The trickiest tone area for Korean developers. Direct-translated "This is wrong" reads as aggressive in global teams. But too much hedging loses the information.
3.1 Comment prefix conventions - nit, blocker, suggestion
| Prefix | Meaning | Korean nuance | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
nit: | nitpick, minor style point | "if I'm being picky" | nit: extra blank line above |
suggestion: | suggestion, author can ignore | "what if we tried this" | suggestion: extract this into a helper? |
question: | question, not a change request | "why did you choose this?" | question: why not use the existing util? |
blocker: | blocks merge | "this must change before merge" | blocker: this leaks the user's email |
praise: | praise | "love this part" | praise: love this refactor! |
LGTM | Looks Good To Me | "approved" | LGTM, shipping it 🚀 |
3.2 Verb intensity spectrum
In English code review a single verb sets the tone. Ordered from soft to hard:
| Soft → Hard | Verb / phrase | Korean nuance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | consider ...ing | "you might want to think about" |
| 2 | it might be worth ...ing | "it could be worth" |
| 3 | I'd suggest ...ing | "I'd recommend" |
| 4 | we should ... | "we should probably" |
| 5 | we need to ... | "we have to" |
| 6 | we must ... / this must be fixed before merge | "must do this (before merge)" |
3.3 Scenario table
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clearer variable name | Consider renaming d to durationMs for clarity. | nit: maybe durationMs instead of d? | 変数名を durationMs に変更されてはいかがでしょうか。 | この d、durationMs の方が分かりやすいかも。 |
| Missing null check | This function doesn't handle the null case — could you add a guard? | blocker: null case isn't handled, can you add a guard? | こちらの関数で null のケースが処理されていないように見えます。ガードを追加していただけますでしょうか。 | ここ null のケース落ちてる気がする、ガード入れて! |
| What do you think | What do you think about extracting this into a hook? | WDYT about extracting this into a hook? | こちらをフックに切り出すのはいかがでしょうか。 | これフックに切り出すのどう? |
| Ready to merge | LGTM, approving. | LGTM 🚀 | 問題ございません。マージしていただいて結構です。 | LGTM、マージしてOK! |
| Praise for refactor | This is a fantastic refactor — much cleaner. | This refactor slaps. | 素晴らしいリファクタリングですね。とても読みやすくなりました。 | このリファクタめっちゃキレイ、最高。 |
3.4 Words Korean developers should avoid
obviously/clearly— direct-translated from "당연히" or "명백히". Reads as "you should know this."just— minimizes the work. "Just use the helper" → "I'd use the helper here" is safer.actually— corrective tone. "It actually returns null" → "It returns null in this case."simply— same trap asjust.should be easy to fix— sounds like pressure when the author is struggling.
4. PR writing - Title, body, Conventional Commits
The 2026 standard is still Conventional Commits. Title within 50 chars, body with three sections: What / Why / How tested.
4.1 Title prefix table
| Prefix | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
feat: | new feature | feat(payment): add Apple Pay support |
fix: | bug fix | fix(auth): handle expired refresh token |
refactor: | refactor without behavior change | refactor(api): extract retry helper |
perf: | performance | perf(db): add index on user_id |
docs: | docs only | docs(readme): clarify setup steps |
test: | tests | test(payment): cover Apple Pay path |
chore: | build / tooling | chore(deps): bump next to 15.4 |
ci: | CI changes | ci: cache node_modules in pipeline |
revert: | revert | revert: feat(payment): add Apple Pay support |
BREAKING CHANGE: | breaking change | add a BREAKING CHANGE: ... line in body |
4.2 PR body templates
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What was done | This PR introduces ... | What: ... | この PR では ... を導入します。 | この PR で ... を入れた。 |
| Why it's needed | We're seeing X% of users hit Y, which leads to Z. | Why: X% of users hit Y → Z. | 全体の X% のユーザーが Y に遭遇し、Z につながっている状況です。 | ユーザーの X% が Y にぶつかってて Z な感じ。 |
| How tested | Verified via unit tests + manual E2E on staging. | How tested: unit + manual E2E on staging. | ユニットテストとステージング環境での手動 E2E で検証済みです。 | ユニットとステージングで手動 E2E、OK。 |
| Breaking change marker | BREAKING CHANGE: payment.create() now requires currency. | BREAKING CHANGE: payment.create() needs currency now. | 破壊的変更: payment.create() に currency が必須になります。 | 破壊的変更あり、payment.create() で currency 必須にした。 |
| Mention reviewers | @alice @bob — PTAL when you have a moment. | @alice @bob PTAL when you can! | @alice さん、@bob さん、お手すきの際にレビューをお願いいたします。 | @alice @bob 時間あるときレビューお願い! |
4.3 Scope naming tips
The scope in feat(scope): is usually the folder or domain name. feat(api): ..., feat(web/payment): ... — slash-separated hierarchies are common.
5. Incident response - SEV1/SEV2 phrasing
Incident channels follow a 3-second rule: one sentence captures what / who / when from. The Korean-speaker pitfall: writing only "I'm looking into it" without naming the ownership area.
5.1 SEV severity labels
| Level | Meaning | Japanese |
|---|---|---|
SEV1 | full outage, revenue impact | 重大障害 (じゅうだいしょうがい) |
SEV2 | core feature partially down, some users affected | 部分障害 |
SEV3 | non-core feature, workaround exists | 軽度障害 |
SEV4 | internal tool, no external impact | 内部障害 |
5.2 Scenario table
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Detected elevated errors on payment | We're seeing elevated 5xx errors on /payment/create — opening SEV2. | seeing elevated 5xx on /payment/create, calling SEV2. | /payment/create で 5xx エラーが急増しております。SEV2 として対応開始します。 | /payment/create で 5xx 上がってる、SEV2 開ける。 |
| I'm the incident commander | I'll IC this one. | I'll IC. | 私が IC(インシデントコマンダー)を務めさせていただきます。 | IC 私がやる。 |
| Rolling back | Rolling back to v1.4.2 — ETA 5 min. | rolling back to v1.4.2, ETA 5 min. | v1.4.2 にロールバックを実施中です。完了予定は 5 分後です。 | v1.4.2 にロールバック中、あと5分くらい。 |
| Estimating impact | Estimated impact: ~12k users between 14:32 and 14:48 KST. | impact: ~12k users, 14:32–14:48 KST. | 影響範囲は 14:32 〜 14:48 KST の約 1.2 万ユーザーと見積もっております。 | 影響は 14:32〜14:48 で 1.2万人くらい。 |
| Errors recovered | Error rate is back to baseline — monitoring for 30 min. | errors back to baseline, monitoring 30 min. | エラー率が通常に戻りました。今後 30 分間モニタリングを継続します。 | エラー戻った、30分監視続ける。 |
| Schedule postmortem | I'll schedule a blameless postmortem for tomorrow. | scheduling a blameless postmortem for tmrw. | 明日、ブレームレス・ポストモーテムを設定いたします。 | 明日ブレームレスでポストモーテムやる。 |
5.3 Why "blameless" matters
In English-speaking postmortems, "blameless" is almost a religious keyword — a covenant to flip the question from "Who broke prod?" to "What in our system made it possible to break prod?" Japan picked this up via Mercari and Cookpad as "犯人探しをしない" (no manhunt), which is even more explicit than the Korean equivalent.
6. 1on1 - One-on-one with your manager
The golden rule: the IC owns the agenda. A 1on1 where the manager opens the topic is essentially a status meeting. The Korean "I don't really have anything" answer zeroes out the value of 1on1.
6.1 Agenda categories
| Category | Meaning | English example |
|---|---|---|
| Career growth | growth / promotion | "I'd like to chat about my growth path to staff." |
| Feedback for me | feedback I'm receiving | "What's one thing I could be doing better?" |
| Feedback for you | feedback I'm giving the manager | "I have some feedback for you, can I share?" |
| Project | project state | "Quick update on Payments v2 — we hit X." |
| Personal | personal | "I'd like to share something personal." |
| Team dynamics | relationships in the team | "I want to talk about the dynamic with X." |
6.2 Scenario table
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Want to talk about promotion | I'd like to start a conversation about my path to senior. | wanna chat about promo to senior. | シニアへの昇格について、相談させていただきたいです。 | シニアへの昇格、話したい。 |
| Close to burnout | I'm running a bit close to burnout — I want to flag this early. | I'm getting close to burnout, flagging early. | 最近少しバーンアウト気味で、早めに共有させてください。 | 最近ちょっと燃え尽き気味、早めに言っとく。 |
| Give me one piece of feedback | What's one specific thing I could improve in the next quarter? | One thing I should work on next quarter? | 次の四半期で私が改善すべき具体的なポイントを一つ教えていただけますか。 | 次の四半期で私が直すべきこと、一個教えて。 |
| I need help | I need your support to unblock X with Y team. | Need your help to unblock X with Y team. | X の件で Y チームとの調整のため、サポートをお願いできますでしょうか。 | X の件でYチームとの調整、ヘルプして。 |
| Considering internal move | I'm exploring an internal move to the X team. Want your read on it. | thinking about moving to X team — wanted your read. | X チームへの異動を検討しており、ご意見を伺いたいです。 | X チームへの異動考えてて、意見ほしい。 |
7. Requirements meeting - Resolving ambiguity
The Korean-speaker pattern: nodding "yes I understand" in the meeting, then asking the same question in Slack afterward. Inefficient in both English-speaking and Japanese teams.
7.1 Surfacing ambiguity
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What's the exact trigger | Can you walk me through the exact conditions when this should trigger? | What's the exact trigger condition here? | こちらの正確な発火条件についてご説明いただけますでしょうか。 | これ、発動条件ちゃんと教えて。 |
| Possible edge case | I see a potential edge case when user is in country X and language Y. | Edge case: user in country X, lang Y. WDYD? | ユーザーが X 国かつ言語 Y のエッジケースが懸念されます。 | エッジケースありそう: X国でY言語のとき。 |
| Rank these for me | Could you rank these three requirements for me? | which of these 3 is P0? | 3つの要件の優先順位を教えていただけますか。 | この3つ、優先順位どれが一番? |
| Scope is growing | I'm noticing scope creep — can we re-baseline? | Feels like scope creep, can we re-scope? | スコープが拡大しているように感じます。再定義していただけますでしょうか。 | スコープ膨らんでる、再定義しよ。 |
| Take it offline | Let's take this offline and circle back. | let's take this offline. | こちらは別途お話しさせてください。 | これ別で話そう。 |
7.2 What "let's take this offline" actually means
In video-meeting age, "offline" means "outside this meeting." It's a polite topic blocker: "this topic is too long to unblock here — let's schedule separately." Japanese equivalent: "別途調整" / "別途お時間いただけますか."
8. Data analysis reports - KPI, north star, lift
Sharing A/B test results or quarterly reviews. Statistical vocabulary is the foundation of trust.
| English term | Korean | Japanese | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| North star metric | 북극성 지표 | 北極星指標 / ノーススター指標 | "Our north star is weekly active checkouts." |
| Lift | 개선폭 (상대) | リフト | "Variant B drove a 4.2% lift in conversion." |
| Statistical significance | 통계적 유의성 | 統計的有意性 | "Results were significant at p < 0.05." |
| Confidence interval | 신뢰구간 | 信頼区間 | "95% CI was [+2.1%, +6.3%]." |
| Sample size | 표본 크기 | サンプルサイズ | "We need ~50k users per arm." |
| MAU / DAU / WAU | 월/일/주 활성 사용자 | MAU / DAU / WAU | "DAU grew 12% MoM." |
| Funnel drop-off | 퍼널 이탈 | ファネル離脱 | "Biggest drop-off is at step 3." |
| Retention curve | 리텐션 커브 | リテンションカーブ | "D7 retention sits at 24%." |
| Cohort | 코호트 | コホート | "Q1 cohort retained better than Q4." |
| CAC / LTV | 고객획득비용 / 생애가치 | CAC / LTV | "LTV / CAC is 3.1x." |
8.1 Presentation scenarios
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sharing results | I'd like to share the results of the A/B test we ran last week. | sharing A/B results from last week. | 先週実施した A/B テストの結果を共有させていただきます。 | 先週のA/Bの結果共有する。 |
| Statistically significant | The lift was statistically significant at p < 0.01. | sig at p < 0.01. | 統計的有意性は p < 0.01 で確認されました。 | 統計的に有意、p < 0.01。 |
| Sample too small | Sample size was too small to call it definitively. | sample too small to call it. | サンプルサイズが不足していたため、確定的な結論には至りませんでした。 | サンプル足りなくて確定できなかった。 |
| Conclusion | In summary, Variant B wins on conversion but loses on AOV. | TL;DR: B wins conversion, loses AOV. | 結論として、バリアント B はコンバージョンで勝ち、AOV で負けます。 | 結論: B はコンバージョン勝ち、AOV 負け。 |
Korean-speaker pitfall: don't conflate significant and meaningful. Significant is statistical; meaningful is business impact. "0.1% lift was significant but not meaningful" is a perfectly valid sentence.
9. PTO / OOO - 育休, 有給, vacation
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out next week | I'll be OOO next week (May 20–24). | OOO next week 5/20-24. | 来週 5/20 〜 5/24 は有給休暇をいただきます。 | 来週 5/20〜24 有給とります。 |
| Coverage | Alice will be covering for me — please ping her. | Alice is covering, ping her. | 不在の間は Alice が対応いたしますので、彼女までご連絡ください。 | 不在中は Alice がカバー、彼女に投げて。 |
| Sick today | I'm out sick today — will catch up tomorrow. | out sick today, catch up tmrw. | 本日体調不良のためお休みをいただきます。明日キャッチアップいたします。 | 今日体調悪くて休む、明日キャッチアップする。 |
| Korean holiday | Out for Korean Thanksgiving (Chuseok) Sep 28–Oct 2. | OOO Chuseok 9/28-10/2. | 9/28 〜 10/2 は韓国の秋夕(チュソク)休暇となります。 | 9/28〜10/2 はチュソク休み。 |
Japan culture note: 有給 (yuukyuu, paid leave) is a right, but the "everyone takes it" culture isn't universal. Mercari and other globalized firms encourage PTO actively; traditional SIers still carry an apologetic tone.
10. Declining - Saying NO gracefully
The hardest area for Korean developers. "I'll try" is read as "YES" in English-speaking environments; "it'll be difficult" is read as "NO" in Japanese — culture collisions abound.
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Can't take this quarter | I won't be able to take this on this quarter — let's revisit in Q3. | can't take this on this quarter, let's revisit Q3. | 今四半期での対応は難しく、Q3 で再検討させていただけますでしょうか。 | 今四半期は無理、Q3 でまた相談しよ。 |
| De-prioritize | I'd like to propose we de-prioritize this in favor of X. | let's de-prio this for X. | こちらは X を優先するため、優先度を下げるご提案です。 | これ X 優先で後回しにしたい。 |
| Wrong team | This sits better with the X team — happy to make an intro. | feels like X team's scope, can intro. | こちらは X チームの範囲のように思われますので、おつなぎいたしましょうか。 | これ X チームの担当じゃない? 紹介できる。 |
| I'll look (answer pending) | Let me take a look and get back to you by EOD Friday. | I'll take a look, get back to you Fri EOD. | 確認のうえ、金曜日中までにご連絡差し上げます。 | 確認して金曜までに連絡する。 |
| Direct decline | This isn't something I can commit to. | I can't commit to this. | こちらはお引き受けすることが難しい状況です。 | これは無理、受けられない。 |
ESL tip: When declining in English, almost always pair the no with an alternative or reason. No, but here's what I can do: ...
11. Apologies - Calibrating responsibility
In English, I'm sorry and I apologize carry different weights — the latter is more formal. Japanese has finer gradations.
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sorry for delayed reply | Apologies for the delayed response. | Sorry for the slow reply! | ご返信が遅くなり申し訳ございません。 | 返事遅れてごめん! |
| It was my mistake | This was on me — I'll follow up with a fix. | my bad, fixing now. | こちらは私の不手際でございます。修正いたします。 | これ私のミス、直す。 |
| Apologize again | I want to apologize again for the disruption. | Sorry again for the disruption. | 重ねてご迷惑をおかけし、誠に申し訳ございません。 | 重ねて、本当ごめんなさい。 |
| Late review | Sorry for the late review — diving in now. | sorry, late review, diving in. | レビューが遅くなり申し訳ございません。今から確認いたします。 | レビュー遅れてごめん、今見る。 |
Japanese apology gradations (by weight):
- すみません - light apology
- ごめんなさい - personal
- 申し訳ございません - business standard
- 大変申し訳ございません - heavier
- 誠に申し訳ございませんでした - formal public apology (e.g., outage notice)
12. Praise - Beating praise inflation
English-speaking workplaces have heavy praise inflation — Great work! is almost a greeting. For meaningful praise, specificity is required.
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outstanding work | Outstanding work on the migration — the rollout was seamless. | Outstanding migration work, rollout was clean 🚀 | マイグレーションのお仕事、本当に素晴らしかったです。ロールアウトもスムーズでした。 | マイグレーション、めっちゃ良かった、ロールアウトもスムーズ。 |
| Props to X | Props to @alice for the deep-dive into the perf regression. | Props to @alice for that perf deep-dive! | パフォーマンス劣化の深掘り、@alice さんに感謝いたします。 | パフォの調査、@alice ありがとう! |
| Public shoutout | Quick shoutout to @bob — saved us 4 hours on the deploy. | Shoutout to @bob, saved us 4hrs on deploy 🙌 | @bob さん、デプロイで4時間も節約していただきありがとうございました。 | @bob デプロイで4時間救ってくれた、感謝! |
| You're a powerhouse | You're a force multiplier on this team. | You're carrying us 💪 | あなたはチームの力を倍にしてくださっています。 | チームの底上げ、めっちゃしてくれてる。 |
12.1 Mapping Korean "수고하셨습니다" to English / Japanese
- "수고하셨습니다" has no 1:1 English equivalent. Context-dependent:
- End of meeting:
Thanks everyone!/Great session! - End of day:
Have a good evening!/ Japaneseお疲れ様でした - End of project:
Great work shipping this!/Massive props to the team
- End of meeting:
13. Email - Greetings and sign-offs
| Category | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 |
|---|---|---|---|
| First email to a stranger | Dear Mr./Ms. X, | Hi X, | X 様 / 株式会社 X 御中 |
| Internal company | Hi team, / Hello all, | Hey team, / Hey folks, | 皆様 / 各位 |
| Close colleague | Hey, | Hey, / Yo, | お疲れ様です |
| Formal close | Best regards, / Sincerely, | Best, / Cheers, | 何卒よろしくお願い申し上げます |
| Friendly close | Best, / Thanks, | Cheers, / Thx, | よろしく |
13.1 Email body phrases
| Korean intent | English | 日本語 |
|---|---|---|
| Got your email | I received your email — thank you. | メール拝受いたしました。 |
| Will look into it | I'll look into it and get back to you. | 確認のうえ、ご連絡差し上げます。 |
| Please find attached | Please find attached ... | 添付ファイルをご確認ください。 |
| Want to schedule | Could we find 30 min next week to discuss? | 来週中に 30 分ほどお打ち合わせのお時間をいただけますでしょうか。 |
| Sorry for late reply | Apologies for the delayed reply. | ご返信が遅くなり申し訳ございません。 |
14. Slack / chat abbreviations cheat sheet
The 2026 global IT Slack abbreviation standard is mostly locked in.
| Abbrev. | Expansion | Korean nuance | Japanese |
|---|---|---|---|
PTAL | Please Take A Look | "have a look" | 確認お願いします |
FYI | For Your Information | "FYI" | ご参考まで |
WFM | Works For Me | "works for me" | 私は大丈夫です |
TIL | Today I Learned | "TIL" | 今日知った |
IIRC | If I Recall Correctly | "if I remember right" | 私の記憶が正しければ |
OOO | Out Of Office | "PTO" | 不在 |
EOD | End Of Day | "by today" | 本日中 |
EOW | End Of Week | "by end of week" | 今週中 |
ETA | Estimated Time of Arrival | "ETA" | 完了予定時刻 |
LGTM | Looks Good To Me | "approved" | 承認 / 問題なし |
WIP | Work In Progress | "WIP" | 作業中 |
MVP | Minimum Viable Product | "MVP" | MVP |
POC | Proof Of Concept | "POC" | PoC / 概念実証 |
NIT | nitpick | "nit" | 細かい指摘 |
WDYT | What Do You Think | "what do you think" | どう思いますか |
BTW | By The Way | "by the way" | ところで |
ICYMI | In Case You Missed It | "in case you missed" | 念のため |
14.1 Emoji culture
:eyes:👀 — "I'm looking, response coming":pray:🙏 — request / thanks:white_check_mark:✅ — done:fire:🔥 — urgent or amazing (context-dependent):rocket:🚀 — deploy / launch:bug:🐛 — bug report:facepalm:🤦 — self-deprecating
Japanese Slack: :bow: (お辞儀) emoji handles both apology and thanks broadly.
15. Running a meeting - Agenda, action items, recap
Running meetings in Korean doesn't automatically transfer to English. A phrase kit is required.
15.1 Meeting facilitation phrases
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Let's get started | Let's go ahead and get started. | Let's kick this off. | お時間になりましたので、始めさせていただきます。 |
| Sharing the agenda | Quick run through the agenda... | Agenda for today... | 本日のアジェンダを共有させていただきます。 |
| Next item | Let's move on to the next item. | Moving on. | 次の議題に移ります。 |
| Step back from this | Let's put a pin in that for now. | Let's park that. | こちらは一旦置いておきましょう。 |
| Back on topic | Let's get back on track. | Back to the topic. | 本題に戻りましょう。 |
| Capture action items | Let's capture the action items. | Action items? | アクションアイテムを整理いたします。 |
| Notes owner | @alice will own the notes. | @alice on notes. | 議事録は @alice さんにお願いいたします。 |
| Any questions | Any questions before we wrap? | Any qs? | ご質問はございますでしょうか。 |
| Wrap | Thanks everyone, let's wrap. | Wrap! | 以上です、ありがとうございました。 |
15.2 What "parking lot" really means
"Let's put that in the parking lot" means "that topic is too big or off-topic — let's set it aside." Japanese: "保留" or "別途検討."
16. Interviewing - System design, behavioral STAR
Interview English is its own sub-genre. Two-way phrasing for being interviewer or candidate.
16.1 System design phrases
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) |
|---|---|---|
| Let me clarify reqs | Let me clarify the requirements first. | Let me get the reqs straight first. |
| Throughput / latency | What's the expected throughput and latency budget? | What's the QPS and latency target? |
| Consistency vs availability | We'd trade strong consistency for availability here. | Eventual consistency works here. |
| Box-and-arrow first | I'll sketch the high-level components first. | Let me box-and-arrow this. |
| Trade-offs | The trade-off is X vs Y — I'd lean toward Y because ... | Trade-off: X vs Y, I'd pick Y because ... |
16.2 Behavioral - STAR
STAR = Situation / Task / Action / Result.
| Korean intent | English example |
|---|---|
| Situation | "Last year my team was facing a 30% error rate spike during checkout. (Situation)" |
| Task | "As tech lead, I owned both the triage and the long-term fix. (Task)" |
| Action | "I led a war room, ran a binary-search rollback, and identified a Redis key collision. (Action)" |
| Result | "Error rate dropped to 0.2% within 4 hours, and we shipped a postmortem with three preventative actions. (Result)" |
Korean-speaker pitfall: answering behavioral questions with "our team solved it together" makes it hard to evaluate you. Use I precisely. "I led ... while the team supported with ..."
17. Governance - RFC / ADR phrasing
Large technical decision documents. What matters is the section keyword standard.
17.1 RFC section vocabulary
| Section | English | 日本語 |
|---|---|---|
| Motivation | Motivation | 動機 / 背景 |
| Goals | Goals | 目的 |
| Out-of-scope | Non-goals | 非目標 / スコープ外 |
| Proposal | Proposal | 提案 |
| Alternatives considered | Alternatives considered | 検討した代替案 |
| Trade-offs | Trade-offs | トレードオフ |
| Open questions | Open questions | 未解決の論点 |
| Decision | Decision | 決定事項 |
| Consequences | Consequences | 結果 |
17.2 Phrase table
| Korean intent | English |
|---|---|
| I'd like to propose | I'd like to propose adopting X for use case Y. |
| Stating non-goals | Non-goals: we're not addressing X in this RFC. |
| Open questions | Open question: how do we migrate the legacy data? |
| Decision deadline | Decision deadline: end of week. |
| Alternative A rejected | Alternative A was considered but rejected because of X. |
18. Postmortem - 5 Whys, lessons learned
Drafted within 24–72 hours after an incident. The vocabulary is almost ritualistically standardized.
18.1 Core vocabulary
| English | Korean | 日本語 |
|---|---|---|
| Blameless postmortem | 비난 없는 포스트모템 | ブレームレス・ポストモーテム |
| Timeline | 타임라인 | タイムライン |
| Root cause | 근본 원인 | 根本原因 |
| Contributing factors | 기여 요인들 | 寄与要因 |
| 5 Whys | 다섯 번의 왜 | なぜなぜ分析 |
| Lessons learned | 배운 점 | 教訓 |
| Action items | 액션 아이템 | アクションアイテム |
| Detection time (TTD) | 탐지까지 시간 | 検知までの時間 |
| Mitigation time (TTM) | 완화까지 시간 | 緩和までの時間 |
| Recovery time (TTR) | 복구까지 시간 | 復旧までの時間 |
18.2 Phrase table
| Korean intent | English |
|---|---|
| No blame | This is a blameless postmortem — we focus on systems, not people. |
| Root cause | Root cause: a race condition in the connection pool when traffic exceeded 5k QPS. |
| Why detection was late | Our alert thresholds were tuned for the old traffic baseline and didn't trip. |
| Action items | Action 1: Add SLO-based alerts. Owner: @alice. Due: end of next sprint. |
19. Resigning / changing jobs - Graceful exit
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resignation email | I'm writing to let you know that I'll be leaving the company on May 30. | wanted to let you know my last day will be 5/30. | 5月30日をもちまして退職することになりましたので、ご報告申し上げます。 | 5月30日で退職することになった、共有まで。 |
| Handover | I'll prepare a detailed handover doc for the Payments service. | I'll write up a handover doc for Payments. | Payments サービスの引き継ぎ資料を準備いたします。 | Payments の引き継ぎ資料、用意する。 |
| Reference ask | Would you be open to serving as a reference? | Could you be a reference for me? | リファレンスをお願いできますでしょうか。 | リファレンスお願いできる? |
| Last greeting | It's been a privilege working with all of you. | Been a blast working with you all. | 皆様と共に仕事をできましたこと、誠に光栄でした。 | 皆と仕事できて本当に良かった。 |
Culture note: in Japan, the standard notice period is 1–3 months, not 2 weeks. Korea is typically 1 month, US is 2 weeks. The biggest friction point when crossing global teams.
20. Negotiation - Promotion, salary, compensation
In manager negotiation meetings, the Korean "just take care of me, you know" approach fails in both English and Japanese cultures.
20.1 Phrase table
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) | 日本語 (砕け) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open promotion conversation | I'd like to formally start the conversation about promotion to senior. | wanna start the promo convo to senior. | シニアへの昇格について、正式に協議を開始させていただきたいです。 | シニア昇格の話、本格的に始めたい。 |
| Share comp target | Based on market data, I'd like to target X for total comp. | based on market, I'm targeting X TC. | 市場データを踏まえ、TC として X を希望いたします。 | 市場見て、TC は X 希望。 |
| Competing offer | I've received a competing offer from X — wanted to share before deciding. | got a competing offer from X, wanted to share. | 他社 X からオファーをいただきましたので、ご共有させてください。 | 他社 X からオファーもらった、共有しとく。 |
| What evidence helps | What evidence would you need to support the case? | what evidence helps the case? | ご検討にあたって、どのような根拠が必要でしょうか。 | 検討するのにどんな根拠あれば? |
| Decision deadline | I need a decision by Friday. | need a call by Friday. | 金曜日までに結論をいただけますでしょうか。 | 金曜までに結論ほしい。 |
Term note: TC = Total Compensation. Base + bonus + equity. In English-speaking IT negotiations, almost all numbers are TC-based.
21. Global meeting manners - Timezone, accents, repeat requests
| Korean intent | English (formal) | English (casual) | 日本語 (敬語) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Could you repeat | Sorry, could you repeat that? | Sorry, can you say that again? | 恐れ入りますが、もう一度お願いできますでしょうか。 |
| Audio cut out | Your audio is cutting out — could you try repeating? | audio cut out, can you say again? | 音声が途切れているようです、もう一度お願いいたします。 |
| Could you slow down | Could you slow down a bit? Want to make sure I follow. | could you slow down a sec? | 少しゆっくりお話しいただけますと幸いです。 |
| Timezone note | I'm in KST so 5pm your time is 6am for me — happy to take it, just FYI. | I'm in KST, that's 6am for me, FYI. | KST のため、貴方の17時は当方6時となります。対応可能ですがご参考まで。 |
| Could you put in chat | Could you drop that in chat? Easier for me to follow. | drop it in chat? easier to follow. | チャットにご記入いただけますでしょうか、その方が確認しやすいです。 |
21.1 Accents and ESL manners
- "I didn't understand" puts the gap on you. "Could you clarify?" shifts it to the speaker — more balanced.
- In Japanese meetings, "もう一度お願いします" is the safest catch-all.
- Voice-recognition captions (Zoom AI Companion, Otter, Granola) are 2026 standard in global teams. "I have captions on" at the start of a meeting is a non-issue.
22. Korean dev community case studies - Going English
22.1 Toss going English
Toss began rolling out English-language internal documents and Slack channels in 2023 to support global team expansion. Key assets:
- Toss Tech Blog English edition (toss.tech) — Korean originals with English translations.
- Design system docs in English.
- Standardized English job descriptions on global hiring pages.
The lesson: English-ization isn't "translation" — it's "restructuring." Moving Korean docs verbatim feels off; English requires its own sentence length and paragraph structure.
22.2 Kakao / LINE English learning
Kakao runs internal English learning programs (1on1 English coaching, English PR-writing workshops). LINE operates with daily collaboration with the Tokyo HQ, giving it a Japanese + English bilingual baseline.
22.3 Korean-language IT English assets
- Korean-English Translation Guide — style guide maintained by Korean translators for IT docs.
- Book: "개발자를 위한 영어" (Hanbit Media).
- Book: "직장인 영어회화 무작정 따라하기" (Gilbut).
- Stack Overflow — best place to see natural English technical phrasing in context.
23. Japanese dev community case studies - IT katakana mapping
23.1 Mercari English as official language
Mercari adopted English as its internal operating language in 2018. Effects:
- Engineering blogs (mercan.mercari.com, engineering.mercari.com) — bilingual English/Japanese.
- 50%+ foreign engineer ratio.
- Meetings in English, Slack defaults to English.
Tokyo-anchored but globally toned. For Korean developers eyeing Japan, Mercari is an English-base entry point.
23.2 Core IT katakana vocabulary mapping
| English | Korean | カタカナ |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy | 배포 | デプロイ |
| Rollback | 롤백 | ロールバック |
| Code review | 코드 리뷰 | コードレビュー |
| Pull request | PR | プルリクエスト / プルリク |
| Merge | 머지 | マージ |
| Refactor | 리팩터링 | リファクタリング |
| Repository | 저장소 | リポジトリ |
| Branch | 브랜치 | ブランチ |
| Commit | 커밋 | コミット |
| Issue | 이슈 | イシュー / 課題 |
| Sprint | 스프린트 | スプリント |
| Retro | 회고 | レトロ / ふりかえり |
| Standup | 스탠드업 | スタンドアップ / 朝会(あさかい) |
| 1on1 | 1대1 | ワンオンワン |
| Onboarding | 온보딩 | オンボーディング |
| Tech lead | 테크 리드 | テックリード / TL |
Tip: In Japanese IT, English-as-is is growing, but senior/SIer environments still favor kanji terms (障害 = incident, 復旧 = recovery) for trust signal. Switching fluidly between the two tones is the best move.
23.3 Japanese dev community
- Qiita — Japan's largest developer blog platform.
- Zenn — modern Japanese developer community.
- Book: WEB+DB PRESS (now ceased, but the back catalog is invaluable).
- LINE / DeNA / Yahoo Japan engineering blogs.
24. ESL tone calibration - "Less direct ≠ less effective"
For Korean developers, English tone calibration feels inefficient at first. "Why beat around the bush?" But the data shows polite forms are faster:
- Aggressive code review → author defensive → 5–10 back-and-forth comments → merge delayed 2 days
- Polite code review → author agrees → 1–2 comments → merge delayed 4 hours
Core principles:
- Critique the code, not the person —
You did X wrong→This line does X, which leads to Y - Lead with curiosity —
Why is this here?→Curious about the reasoning here — could you walk me through? - Own your limits — A single
I might be missing context, but ...keeps the other side off the defensive. - Offer options —
must do X→we could do X or Y; I'd lean toward X because Z. - Acknowledge fast — When they make a good point,
Good point/Fairin one word.
24.1 Anti-pattern words for Korean speakers
| Words to avoid | Why it backfires | Replacement |
|---|---|---|
obviously | "you should know this" tone | (omit) or as you might know |
simply / just | trivializes, pressures | (most often omit) |
actually | corrective tone | in this case |
should be easy | pressuring | if it's feasible |
why don't you ... | imperative | would it be possible to ... |
you need to ... | imperative | we'd benefit from ...ing |
I think you misunderstood | aggressive | I might not have explained well — let me try again |
25. Closing - The next 90 days
Repetition matters less than real exposure.
25.1 90-day plan
| Week | English | Japanese |
|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Rewrite the body of your last PR in English | Read one Mercari engineering blog post fully |
| 3–4 | Write 5 English code review comments | Try writing one Qiita post in Japanese |
| 5–6 | Take notes once in English in a meeting | Read one LINE engineering Japanese post |
| 7–8 | Draft one English RFC / ADR | Read one Japanese RFC |
| 9–10 | Watch + shadow one English conference talk | Watch a Japanese conference (Builderscon, etc.) |
| 11–12 | Simulate an English 1on1 | Simulate a Japanese 1on1 |
25.2 Recommended tools
- DeepL (deepl.com) — most natural KO → EN/JA.
- Grammarly (grammarly.com) — English tone calibration.
- Granola (granola.ai) — meeting captions + summaries.
- HeyGen / Otter — English pronunciation / English meeting notes.
References
- Google's Engineering Practices documentation - Code Review
- Conventional Commits specification
- The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter - global developer culture case studies.
- Atlassian Incident Management handbook
- GitLab Handbook - Communication - the most async-English-first company case.
- Lara Hogan - Resilient Management - 1on1, feedback, manager phrasing standards.
- Stripe Press - English business writing exemplars.
- Mercari Engineering Blog - English-as-official-language case in Japan.
- LINE Engineering - JA / KO bilingual environment.
- Toss Tech - bilingual KO/EN blog case.
- Qiita - Japanese dev blog standard.
- Zenn - modern Japanese dev community.
- Etsy Code as Craft - Blameless postmortems - the original blameless writeup.
- Google SRE Book - Postmortem Culture
- Increment Magazine - On-Call issue
- SmartHR Tech Blog - Japanese dev writing standard.
- Cookpad Engineering - Japanese English-ization case.
- Engoo Blog - common English mistakes by Korean speakers.
- Daniel Stenberg - Working in Open Source - PR / issue English at its purest.
- Will Larson - Staff Engineer - senior-and-above engineer phrasing / RFC culture.
- The Manager's Path - Camille Fournier - 1on1 phrase collection.
- Crucial Conversations book - English phrasing for hard conversations.
- Hanbit Media - 개발자를 위한 영어 - IT English guide for Korean speakers.
- Spotify Engineering - English phrasing + engineering culture.
Final note: the most important realization for Korean developers is that "you can signal great work even when English / Japanese is imperfect." Carrying the impact of your work into the other language is a bigger asset than memorizing perfect phrases.