Learning the language is one half. We've updated the site that covers the other half.
Most of the adults who study Japanese with us are not doing it as a hobby.
They are negotiating with a Japanese supplier. Reporting into a Tokyo head office. Preparing to take a product, a partnership or a global initiative into the Japanese market. The lessons are one part of a much larger piece of work.
That is why, alongside the language school, we run a separate practice for exactly that work — and we have just updated its website.
What it is
Sakura Japanese Workshop's business side is an Europe–Japan execution advisory, based here in The Hague. It is for European leaders and deal teams whose Japan-facing work is not converting from discussion into execution.
The situations clients describe in their first call will sound familiar to anyone who has worked with Japan:
"The meeting went well. Nothing has moved since."
"We will check internally." — and you cannot tell how far it has gone.
"They keep asking the same question." Third time this month, slightly different words.
"My contact is not the person who decides."
"Tokyo approved it. Europe has not implemented it."
"Nobody is objecting. Nobody is executing."
This is deliberately not cross-cultural training. We do not teach people how to behave Japanese. We work on the deal you are running right now — your meetings, your proposal, your counterpart — and if the blockage turns out to be price, product or contract terms rather than culture, the diagnostic says so.
What's on the new site
Your Challenge — the three situations we work in: Japanese partners and suppliers, working with a Japanese HQ from Europe, and getting global initiatives adopted in Japan.
How It Works — a staged engagement: Diagnostic (2 weeks) → Alignment Sprint (4–8 weeks) → Advisory (3–6 months). You decide after each stage whether to continue.
Programmes — including the shorter Japan Business Briefing and HQ Alignment.
Insights — field notes on Europe–Japan execution, plus a free 20-question Japan Readiness Self-Assessment you can download and work through with your own team.
Why we're telling language students about it
Because the two sides of what we do are the same problem seen from two angles.
Kentō sasete itadakimasu — "we will consider it" — is not a difficult sentence. Any of our intermediate students can translate it in a second. The difficulty was never the words. It is knowing what that sentence tells you about where your proposal actually sits inside the organisation, who has seen it, and what has to happen before anyone can say yes.
In class, we work on the first layer: the grammar, the register, the logic of how the language is built. The advisory work is the layer underneath it — how decisions actually get made, and how to design your proposal so it can survive the journey through a Japanese organisation.
You do not need both. But if you are studying Japanese because of your work with Japan, the new site is worth twenty minutes of your time — and the self-assessment is free.
Have a look: business.sakurajapanese.nl
If your own Japan project has stalled somewhere and you would like an outside read on it, there is a 30-minute initial conversation you can book directly from the site. No pitch — and we will tell you honestly if it is not something we can help with.
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