Japanese Work and Office Vocabulary: 社長/部長/課長 Titles, 働く vs 勤める, and Workplace Keigo
Japanese workplace vocabulary is the lexicon of a social system. It includes a rank ladder, the relationship terms beside it, and the register and keigo that decide how each word is spoken.1 Getting it right means learning more than nouns: who outranks whom, and which company gets humbled in front of which listener.
Overview
This page is anchored at JLPT N4–N3. The everyday work nouns (仕事, 会社, 会議, 同僚) and core verbs (働く, 休む) sit around N4. The company-rank ladder, Sino-Japanese schedule words, employment-type vocabulary, the 働く vs 勤める particle contrast, the 名刺 business-card register, and the uchi-soto humbling of one's own company reach into N3 and brush against business keigo.2
Why workplace vocabulary is its own challenge
Workplace vocabulary is not a flat word list. It is a rank ladder (会長, 社長, 部長, 課長, 係長, 社員) plus relationship terms (上司/部下, 先輩/後輩, 同僚). Together, they decide which register and which keigo a speaker must use.1
The same referent even changes form by audience. A speaker's own company is 弊社 (humble) to an outsider but 当社 (neutral) internally, and the other party's company is 御社 (spoken) or 貴社 (written).3 This uchi-soto (in-group / out-group) switching is what makes work vocabulary harder than family or food vocabulary.
How this list is organized
Throughout, this page pairs an everyday or native-Japanese (和語, wago) term with its more formal Sino-Japanese (漢語, kango) counterpart. This is the convention this thematic series uses. The headline pairs are 働く (the activity) vs 勤める (the affiliation),45 and 仕事 (casual, broad) vs 勤務 / 業務 (kango, "duty" / "operations").6
This casual/formal pairing is a concept the page teaches by example. It is not a forward reference to another article.
The company-rank ladder: 社長 to 社員
Executive and management titles
The 役職序列 (yakushoku-joretsu, "rank order") runs top to bottom. At the management levels, many ranks share the morpheme 長 (chō, "head/chief").1
| Rank | Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 会長 | かいちょう | chairman (board chair) |
| 2 | 社長 | しゃちょう | company president / CEO |
| 3 | 副社長 | ふくしゃちょう | vice president |
| 4 | 専務(取締役) | せんむ(とりしまりやく) | senior managing director |
| 5 | 常務(取締役) | じょうむ(とりしまりやく) | managing director |
| 6 | 部長 | ぶちょう | department head / general manager |
| 7 | 次長 | じちょう | deputy department head |
| 8 | 課長 | かちょう | section chief / section manager |
| 9 | 係長 | かかりちょう | subsection chief / unit leader |
| 10 | 主任 | しゅにん | team leader / senior staff |
専務 outranks 常務, and both are 取締役 (board directors).1 The line-management spine most learners actually meet is the lower run: 部長 to 課長 to 係長 to 主任.1
A diagram makes the descent and the management-spine subset easier to hold than the table alone.
彼は課長に昇進した。7
"He was promoted to section chief."
彼は営業部の部長です。7
"He is the manager of the sales department."
課長は職権を乱用することが好きなようだね。7
"The section chief seems to like abusing his authority."
Rank-and-file and entry terms
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 社員 | しゃいん | company employee |
| 正社員 | せいしゃいん | regular / permanent employee89 |
| 新入社員 | しんにゅうしゃいん | new hire / new employee |
| 平社員 | ひらしゃいん | rank-and-file employee (no title) |
| 一般社員 | いっぱんしゃいん | general (untitled) employee1 |
| 役員 | やくいん | board officer / executive |
| 社会人 | しゃかいじん | working adult (member of society) |
平社員 and 一般社員 both name an employee with no 役職 (title); 一般社員 sits at the bottom of the rank ladder.1
社会人 marks the school-to-work transition: a 学生 (student) becomes a 社会人 on entering the workforce.9
彼女はこの会社の正社員ではありません。7
"She's not among the regular employees of this company."
Titles as address: the 〜さん vs 役職名 question
In a Japanese office, you address a superior by 役職名 (job title). The title can be appended to the surname (田中部長, "Department-head Tanaka") or used alone (部長, 課長), but not with 〜さん.1 The title itself carries the respect, so 田中部長さん over-marks it.
This is a register convention tied to keigo level; the mechanics of which honorific register fits which relationship belong to the keigo articles, not this page.
A job title already encodes respect. 部長 or 田中部長 is correct; 田中部長さん stacks two layers of deference and reads as a beginner slip.1
課長さんが計画に変更を加えました。7
"The section chief altered the plan."
The form 課長さん appears here in casual third-person reference. Direct address to your own superior is normally bare 課長 or 田中課長. A title used alone can also stand in for the person, as in this gift example where 部長 names the giver.
部長から記念品を頂きました。7
"I received a commemorative gift from the department head."
Workplace relationships: 上司, 同僚, 先輩, 後輩
Vertical relationships: 上司 and 部下
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 上司 | じょうし | one's boss / superior9 |
| 部下 | ぶか | one's subordinate9 |
上司 / 部下 is the vertical in-group axis. It governs which keigo a speaker uses upward.9
彼は私の上司です。7
"He is my boss."
上司にこっぴどく叱られた。7
"I got chewed out by my boss."
先輩 and 後輩 at work
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 先輩 | せんぱい | senior colleague (joined earlier) |
| 後輩 | こうはい | junior colleague (joined later) |
先輩 / 後輩 is the seniority axis carried over from school into the workplace. It tracks who joined earlier, regardless of job title.9
Peers: 同僚 and 仲間
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 同僚 | どうりょう | colleague (same level)9 |
| 同期 | どうき | same-cohort hire (joined the same year)9 |
| 仲間 | なかま | workmate / comrade (warmer) |
彼は僕の同僚なんだ。7
"He's one of my colleagues."
二人とも私の同僚です。7
"Both are my colleagues."
Employment types: 正社員 to アルバイト
Permanent vs non-permanent
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss | Definition basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| 正社員 | せいしゃいん | regular full-time employee | indefinite-term, direct, full-time810 |
| 契約社員 | けいやくしゃいん | contract (fixed-term) employee | 有期労働契約, auto-terminates at term end89 |
| 派遣社員 / 派遣 | はけんしゃいん / はけん | dispatched (temp-agency) worker | employed by 派遣元, directed by 派遣先8 |
The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) defines 派遣 as a three-party arrangement. The 派遣元 (dispatch agency) employs the worker, while the 派遣先 (client company) gives work direction.8 契約社員 work on a 有期労働契約 (fixed-term contract) that automatically ends when the contract period expires.8
正社員 sits at the top of the security ladder Japanese workers track as 正規 (regular) vs 非正規 (non-regular) employment. 非正規 is the umbrella for fixed-term, part-time, and dispatched work.10
せっかく採用した派遣社員がすぐに辞めてしまった。7
"The temp worker we'd gone to the trouble of hiring quit right away."
Part-time work: アルバイト and パート
| Japanese | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| アルバイト | (katakana) | part-time job (often students)11 |
| バイト | (katakana) | part-time job (clipped, casual)11 |
| パート | (katakana) | part-time work (statutory: shorter hours)12 |
アルバイト is a loanword from German Arbeit ("work"); in Japanese it narrowed to "part-time job, especially for students," and the clipped form is バイト.11
パート (パートタイム労働者) is the statutory term for a worker whose weekly scheduled hours are shorter than a 正社員's at the same workplace.12 In everyday use, パート skews toward homemakers and アルバイト toward students. But the legal definition rests on hours, not on who you are.12
コンビニでアルバイトをします。7
"I'm going to work part-time at a convenience store."
A part-time job names its location with で, exactly like 働く in the next section.
9月末まで本屋で正社員として働きます。7
"I'm working full-time in a bookshop until the end of September."
就職 and 転職: getting and changing jobs
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 就職 | しゅうしょく | getting hired into the workforce |
| 就職活動 / 就活 | しゅうしょくかつどう / しゅうかつ | the job hunt |
| 転職 | てんしょく | changing jobs |
| 退職 | たいしょく | leaving / quitting a job |
| 内定 | ないてい | informal job offer |
就職 (a suru-verb: 就職する) marks the employer with に, following the same affiliation logic as 勤める below.
兄は大企業に就職した。7
"My older brother got a job at a big company."
転職したんだ。7
"I changed jobs."
就活 is the everyday clipped form of 就職活動.
就職活動はどう？7
"How's the job hunt going?"
The verbs of working: 働く vs 勤める
働く: to work (the activity)
働く (hataraku) is the general native verb (和語) for the act of working or labouring.5 The location of the activity is marked with で: 会社で働く, 東京で働く.5 This で marks the location of an action. Its mechanics belong to the で-particle article.
私はこの会社で働いています。7
"I work at this company."
どこで働いてるの？7
"Where do you work?"
トムは大会社で働く。7
"Tom works for a large company."
勤める: to be employed at (the institution)
勤める (tsutomeru) means "to be employed at / to serve at." It treats the employer as an affiliation and marks it with に: 銀行に勤める, 会社に勤めている.4 働く describes the activity. 勤める describes belonging to an organization, so the particle is に. This is the affiliation/destination に, whose mechanics belong to the に-particle article.
彼女は銀行に勤めている。7
"She works at a bank."
父は銀行に勤めています。7
"My father works for a bank."
お勤め is the polite nominal form; the employer still takes に.
どこの会社にお勤めですか。7
"Which company do you work for?"
This contrast is the headline of the page: same English "work," different particle.
| Verb | Reading | Core nuance | Particle on the workplace |
|---|---|---|---|
| 働く | はたらく | the act/activity of working (wago) | で (location of action)5 |
| 勤める | つとめる | being employed at / serving an employer | に (affiliation)4 |
仕事 vs 勤務 vs 業務: the noun trio
| Kanji | Reading | Register / sense |
|---|---|---|
| 仕事 | しごと | "work / job," casual and broad6 |
| 勤務 | きんむ | "service / duty (on the job)," kango; 勤務時間 = working hours6 |
| 業務 | ぎょうむ | "(formal) business / operations / tasks," kango6 |
仕事 is the everyday wago-flavoured word. 勤務 and 業務 are Sino-Japanese (漢語) terms used in formal and written contexts.6 This is the casual/kango split that runs through the whole page.
仕事はどう？7
"How's work?"
今は勤務中だ。7
"I'm on duty right now."
On the clock: schedule and attendance words
出勤 and 退勤: clocking in and out
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 出勤 | しゅっきん | going to work / reporting for work |
| 退勤 | たいきん | leaving work (off the clock) |
| 出社 | しゅっしゃ | coming in to the company (office) |
| 退社 | たいしゃ | leaving the company (for the day, or for good) |
| 遅刻 | ちこく | being late / lateness |
| 欠勤 | けっきん | absence from work |
出勤 / 退勤 frame attendance by the clock. 出社 / 退社 frame it by the company building. Note that 退社 is ambiguous: "leaving for the day" or "leaving the company permanently" (compare 寿退社, leaving to marry).
普段は、8時半ぐらいに出勤します。7
"I usually get to work at about 8:30."
退社前に電灯や暖房器を消すことになっている。7
"You are expected to turn off the lights and heaters before you leave the office."
The matching 退勤 (off the clock) and 出社 (coming in to the company) round out the set. This constructed pairing shows them in contrast:
定時に退勤して、翌朝9時に出社する。
"Clock out on time, then come in to the office at nine the next morning." (constructed example, not corpus-sourced)
残業, 休憩, 有給
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 残業 | ざんぎょう | overtime |
| 休憩 | きゅうけい | break / rest |
| 昼休み | ひるやすみ | lunch break |
| 有給休暇 / 有休 | ゆうきゅうきゅうか / ゆうきゅう | paid leave |
| 休む | やすむ | to take time off / rest |
有給 (yūkyū, "with-pay") is short for 有給休暇 (paid leave); the everyday clip is 有休.
今日は残業をしないつもりです。7
"I don't intend to work overtime today."
上司に残業させられたんだよ。7
"My boss made me work overtime."
昨日、有給休暇を取りました。7
"I took a paid day off yesterday."
出張 and 外回り
| Japanese | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 出張 | しゅっちょう | business trip |
| 外回り | そとまわり | field / outside work (sales rounds) |
| 在宅勤務 | ざいたくきんむ | working from home |
| テレワーク | (katakana) | telework / remote work |
| リモートワーク | (katakana) | remote work |
在宅勤務 is the kango term. テレワーク and リモートワーク are the gairaigo (loanword) cluster for the same idea.6
彼は出張中です。7
"He's away on a business trip."
父は海外出張が多いんです。7
"My father often goes abroad on business."
Meetings and documents: 会議 and 書類
会議 vs 打ち合わせ
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 会議 | かいぎ | formal meeting / conference |
| 打ち合わせ | うちあわせ | informal working discussion |
| 会議室 | かいぎしつ | meeting room / conference room |
| 議事録 | ぎじろく | meeting minutes |
| 出席 | しゅっせき | attendance / attending |
| 欠席 | けっせき | absence / non-attendance |
会議 is the formal, often larger meeting. 打ち合わせ is the smaller, ad-hoc working discussion. The pair also carries the register split: 打ち合わせ is wago-flavoured, while 会議 is kango.
会議室はどこですか？7
"Where is the meeting room?"
打ち合わせは来週に延期になった。7
"The meeting was put off until next week."
来週、商品開発の打ち合わせをしたいから、どこか会議室押さえといてくれる？7
"I want to hold a product-development meeting next week, so could you book a meeting room somewhere?"
Documents and office items
| Japanese | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 書類 | しょるい | documents / paperwork |
| 資料 | しりょう | materials / handouts |
| 報告書 | ほうこくしょ | report (written) |
| 企画書 | きかくしょ | proposal document |
| はんこ / 印鑑 | はんこ / いんかん | personal seal / stamp |
| パソコン | (katakana) | PC (clipped from "personal computer") |
| コピー機 | コピーき | copier |
| デスク | (katakana) | desk |
報告書は提出したの？7
"Did you turn in the report?"
報連相: report, contact, consult
報連相 (ほうれんそう) packages 報告 (hōkoku, report), 連絡 (renraku, contact/notify), and 相談 (sōdan, consult) into one workplace mantra. It puns on ほうれん草 (hōrensō, "spinach").13 It was popularized in 1982 by 山崎富治, then president of 山種証券, through his book. Other accounts of the original proposal also exist.13
Each piece names a distinct duty toward a supervisor:13
- 報告 is informing a supervisor of progress or results.
- 連絡 is passing on facts and information to the people concerned, without personal opinion.
- 相談 is consulting when you cannot decide alone.
いくつか報告があります。7
"I have a few things to report."
上司も相談に乗ってくれた。7
"My boss gave me advice too."
The 名刺 (business card) and its register
名刺 vocabulary
| Kanji | Reading | Gloss |
|---|---|---|
| 名刺 | めいし | business card |
| 名刺交換 | めいしこうかん | business-card exchange |
| 名刺入れ | めいしいれ | business-card case |
| 肩書き | かたがき | one's title (as printed) |
| 部署 | ぶしょ | department / section |
| 所属 | しょぞく | affiliation (which unit one belongs to) |
These are the words printed on and around a card.
名刺はお持ちですか？7
"Do you have a business card?"
どうぞ、私の名刺です。7
"Here, this is my business card."
トムは名刺を出して挨拶をした。7
"Tom presented his business card and greeted them."
The exchange as a ritual
名刺交換 is a two-handed, status-ordered exchange. It is accompanied by set phrases such as 頂戴いたします (chōdai itashimasu, "I humbly receive it") and よろしくお願いいたします (yoroshiku onegai itashimasu).3
頂戴いたします and いたします are kenjōgo (humble forms). This page covers the vocabulary of the ritual. The verb conjugation belongs to the kenjōgo articles, not here.
Workplace keigo: humbling your own company
弊社 vs 御社/貴社: your company vs theirs
| Kanji | Reading | Sense | Medium |
|---|---|---|---|
| 弊社 | へいしゃ | humble "our company" (to outsiders) | spoken & written3 |
| 当社 | とうしゃ | neutral-formal "our / this company" | internal, websites3 |
| 御社 | おんしゃ | honorific "your company" | spoken3 |
| 貴社 | きしゃ | honorific "your company" | written (emails, résumés)3 |
The own-company forms are uchi (in-group): 弊社 humbles it to an outsider, and 当社 is the neutral, often internal or website form.3 The other-company forms are soto (out-group) and honorific: 御社 in speech, 貴社 in writing.3 This 弊社/御社 pairing is the standard uchi-soto workplace vocabulary.
The four forms sort on two axes at once: whose company it is (uchi vs soto) and the medium (spoken vs written).
弊社の製品と業務内容について御説明させていただきます。7
"Allow us to explain our products and our operations."
御社のお考えを先におっしゃってください。7
"Please tell us your company's thoughts first."
Dropping 〜さん off your own boss
To an outsider, you refer to your own superior with no honorific: 社長の田中は… ("our president, Tanaka, …"), not 田中社長さん or 社長の田中さん. Your own boss is uchi (in-group) relative to the soto (out-group) listener.3 The respect that would normally attach to a superior is suppressed because you are representing the in-group to outsiders.
This page states that the suppression happens. For the full uchi-soto keigo mechanics, see the Asymmetric Keigo article.
Speaking to a client, you say 社長の田中は… with no 〜さん and no 御社-style honorific on your side, because your boss is uchi. Inside your own company, 田中社長 with the title is normal. The honorific drops only across the in-group boundary.3
The set phrases: お疲れ様, 失礼します, よろしくお願いします
| Phrase | Reading | Use |
|---|---|---|
| お疲れ様です | おつかれさまです | all-purpose work greeting / "thanks for your work" |
| ご苦労様です | ごくろうさまです | acknowledging someone's work (see Good to know) |
| 失礼します | しつれいします | "excuse me" on entering/leaving |
| お先に失礼します | おさきにしつれいします | "excuse me for leaving before you" |
| よろしくお願いします | よろしくおねがいします | all-purpose "please / thank you in advance" |
These fixed phrases carry register. The honorific verb mechanics behind them belong to the keigo articles.
お疲れ様でした。7
"Thank you for your hard work."
お先に失礼します。7
"Excuse me for leaving ahead of you."
Good to know
働く takes で, 勤める takes に
働く is doing the activity, so the workplace is the location of action, marked で: 会社で働く.5 勤める is belonging to the employer, so the workplace is an affiliation, marked に: 会社に勤める.4 A useful split is: で is where the work happens, に is the organization you belong to. 就職 ("get hired into") also takes に, following the same affiliation logic.
私はこの会社で働いています。7
"I work at this company."
彼女は銀行に勤めている。7
"She works at a bank."
Never add 〜さん to your own 社長 in front of a client
To an outsider, you say 弊社の社長の田中は… (or 社長の田中が…), dropping the honorific, because your own boss is uchi relative to the soto listener.3 Saying 弊社の社長の田中さんが… to a client over-marks your own in-group and is a classic workplace keigo slip. The same logic governs 弊社 (humble own-company) against 御社 (honorific other-company).3
ご苦労様 is safest avoided upward; default to お疲れ様
The widespread business-manners convention treats ご苦労様 as said downward (superior to subordinate) and お疲れ様 as the form to use toward a superior or peer. Under that convention, saying ご苦労様 to your boss is a frequently flagged error in manner guides.14 NINJAL, however, treats the two as differing in focus (ご苦労様 = the difficulty of the work; お疲れ様 = the listener's fatigue). It describes the downward-only rule as a business convention rather than a linguistic fact.14 The safe takeaway for a learner is to default to お疲れ様です at work, since it is unobjectionable in any direction.14
アルバイト vs パート vs バイト
アルバイト (arubaito) is a loanword from German Arbeit ("work") that narrowed in Japanese to "part-time job," especially for students. The clipped casual form is バイト.11 パート is the statutory part-time category defined by shorter weekly hours. In everyday use, it skews toward homemakers.12 The German origin is a memory hook for which word means casual or student part-time work.
弊社/御社 are spoken; 当社/貴社 lean written
御社 (your company) is the spoken honorific used in interviews and meetings. 貴社 is its written counterpart for emails and applications.3 For your own company, 弊社 is humble in both speech and writing, while 当社 is the neutral-formal form used internally and on websites.3 Picking the wrong medium, such as writing 御社 in a formal email, reads as a register slip in business correspondence.3
See also
- Japanese School and Education Vocabulary: 学校 Levels, 国語/算数/理科 Subjects, and 運動会/文化祭
- Time, Date, and Calendar Vocabulary in Japanese
- Asymmetric Keigo: Humbling Your Own Boss (Uchi-Soto)
- How to Write a Japanese Business Email: Keigo Guide
- Common Keigo Mistakes: 二重敬語 & Baito Keigo
- Shortened Loanwords in Japanese: Why パソコン, リモコン, and アポ Get Clipped