I was doing some translation today and had to think about how to translate the word 同期 into English.
It's at these times, I'm made aware of the many differences between Japanese and Western culture.
We don't have a good word for 同期.
This is probably because school and work are a bigger part of life in Japan than in the West. Japanese education and employment systems are stricter and more rigid, with the traditional idea being that you enter a company in April right after graduating from university and stay there until you retire. Relationships are also less flexible. In the West everyone you can potentially treat everyone you work with in the same manner. In Japanese companies, there is a bigger social gap between others on your level and those on different levels of the company hierarchy. It's no wonder that a word like 同期 would have more importance in Japan than in the West.
So, back to how to translate the word.
You could translate 同期です as "We joined the company at the same time".
That's fairly unproblematic.
The problem starts when you have 同期 in longer sentences.
I ended up translating 同期 as "classmate", but obviously that has limited applicability.
If you have any good ideas, let me know in the comments.
It's at these times, I'm made aware of the many differences between Japanese and Western culture.
We don't have a good word for 同期.
This is probably because school and work are a bigger part of life in Japan than in the West. Japanese education and employment systems are stricter and more rigid, with the traditional idea being that you enter a company in April right after graduating from university and stay there until you retire. Relationships are also less flexible. In the West everyone you can potentially treat everyone you work with in the same manner. In Japanese companies, there is a bigger social gap between others on your level and those on different levels of the company hierarchy. It's no wonder that a word like 同期 would have more importance in Japan than in the West.
So, back to how to translate the word.
You could translate 同期です as "We joined the company at the same time".
That's fairly unproblematic.
The problem starts when you have 同期 in longer sentences.
I ended up translating 同期 as "classmate", but obviously that has limited applicability.
If you have any good ideas, let me know in the comments.