Freelance web develper or teaching Italian

[scieck]

Hi, I am a freelance web developer here in London (UK) with a degree in Software Engineering.
Within the next few months I will get married with my Japanese fiancee, and some time after that we are planning to move to Tokyo.
My japanese level is somewhere between none and very very basic.
I am quite concern regarding my possibility of finding work in Tokyo, I am really enjoying working freelance, does any one know how easy or difficult is to work as a freelance web developer in Japan ?
Would it be best for me looking for a job from here (UK) or is it better from Tokyo ?
To move to Tokyo without a job is quite worrying, is teaching a language (Italian in my case) an easier route ?
I'll be very happy to hear your option, help or advise.
Many thanks.
Andrea

 

[Glenski]

Not much call for Italian in Japan. A little, but not enough to live on.

Spouse visa and no Japanese language skills don't make for promising chances to land any job except teaching English most of the time. Most non-teaching jobs require a fairly high level of Japanese and/or the right experience. In other words, what do you have that a local Japanese doesn't?

 

[scieck]

Seriously ?
Is it a spouse visa not good enough to legally work in Japan ?
I am fluent in English as well as in Spanish, but my mother tang is Italian, I realized that to teach English one of the requirements is that English has to be the teacher mother tang, so i don't think teaching English in Japan is an option for me.
I have been studding Japanese part time (once a week) for a year, and i have taken an intensive course (2 weeks) in Shibuya (Tokyo), i have a long way to go, I know, but i like Nihongo and i have a good ear for languages.
There are many skills, besides teaching English that a gaijin can offer to Japanese companies, different ways of thinking, different approach to problem solving.
I know of Japanese that have been sent here to London to study, by their own company (all paid for), I am sure they have great universities in Japan, but experience and knowledge gathered abroad is always beneficial to companies.
Now this is what i think a gaijin has to offer that a native may doesn't have, experience and knowledge gathered abroad.
I hope I am not totally wrong, and I hope that teaching English is not my only opportunity to work in Japan.

 

[Glenski]

A spouse visa gives you the right to work at practically any job, yes, that's true. However, it is not anything more than that. To actually land the job, you have to show certain qualifications, and for non-teaching jobs that (as I wrote) usually means you have to have good Japanese skills and the necessary background.

Want to see what you're going to need? Go to www.daijob.com/en and see what the language requirements are for jobs in your field. Please also take the link to Terrie Lloyd's huge warehouse of articles on work in Japan and read them.

Non-native people teach English. Getting such work is harder than for native English speakers, yes, but it can be done. Your misspelling of "tongue" (tang) and "studying" (studding) suggest that you need to work on your English skills, but I'm not trying to be a spelling policeman here. Maybe those were just typos.

There are many skills, besides teaching English that a gaijin can offer to Japanese companies, different ways of thinking, different approach to problem solving.

But many Japanese companies don't want different ways of thinking or different approaches to problem solving. They hire Japanese out of college regardless of grades, thinking mostly of the name of the university and the recommendations they get from the J professors who have ties with the companies, and then they mold the grads into their own image. No need to worry about crappy living conditions and pay, long hours, or any language barrier. For foreigners, you need to prove some SKILLS to go along with the LANGUAGE ABILITY. What makes you so unique other than having a Japanese wife?

Yes, some Japanese study abroad, but there are many who return to find that their companies don't want the foreign ways introduced into the works. Some live abroad (on transfers), and after they return they are given a long "cooling off" period of debriefing so they can readjust to Japanese ways of thinking and problem solving.

 

[Davey]

my 2 cents;

A part-time job for teaching Italian should be possible, even though it might take you a while to search for it. How is your English accent? I think when you have a spouse visa, and your English is good enough, it should be possible to work as an ALT for example (Here in Kobe we have about 6 ALT's that are not native English, and they still have a part-time/full-time job).

As a Freelance web developer isn't possible to work from distance as well?

I would also advice you to find other Italians in Japan, for advice.

Good luck

 

[scieck]

First, thanks for the good tips, my short plan I guess is to get some sort of English teacher certificate. That would probably brush up my spelling too.

I could be saying total BS here because both my fiancee and me have no work experience in Japan, but here in England we didn't have to be that special or unique to land good jobs at reasonably good British companies.
Of course our application forms and/or CVs were right next to British ones, but still we got the jobs, against apparently equally qualified British citizens. (this is before I started on my own)
So is not that black and white over here, and I am guessing that there must be some open minded companies in Japan too.
I am getting your point Glenski but I got to be more optimistic than that, i don't have a Nobel prize and I am not a native English speaker, but next year I am going to Japan to stay.

My English accent is not exactly the queen accent, you can tell I am Italian, but is far from strong, definitely much less strong than some Irish and Scottish English teachers I spoke with last time I was in Tokyo.

Definitely as a freelance web developer I can work from distance, and I will try, but generally clients don't go crazy from some one working on the other side of the planet.
Face to face meetings are important, as well as networking to get good jobs, living in Japan will quickly remove me from the British scene of web developers, which is also very competitive over here.

I can't wait to move to Japan, and I appreciated your tips and suggestions.