ABSTRACT
Anyone involved in research in different countries has probably already given up the effort to standardise methodology from market to market. Japanese is a language full of unfinished sentences whose full meaning the listener has to fill in for himself, where a negative feeling may be expressed by a neutral comment, and where a literal translation may often give a misleading impression of what is being said. Professional help is available to explain in English the real meaning of what is said in Japanese. The Japanese often talk about the difference between the outside and the inside and this certainly affects research interviewing. In Japan, there is a marked territorial difference between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the home. Buying research services in Japan is probably no different from anywhere else. Market research in Japan may not be as well developed as in Europe or America, at least in terms of volume or the number of people and firms involved.
