Japanese

Writes and edits Japanese that reads as if a native wrote it — casual, 敬体, or full keigo. Use when composing anything in Japanese (LINE or Slack message, business email, 履歴書, 退職願, 議事録, note or X post, speech, 年賀状, contract clause, manga or game dialogue), or when Japanese text sounds stiff, textbook, translated or AI-generated; when 尊敬語 and 謙譲語, 二重敬語, させていただく, 了解 versus 承知, or さん versus 様 come out wrong; when は/が, particles, transitivity, mixed 敬体 and 常体, kanji-versus-kana balance, 送り仮名 or 全角 punctuation are off; when counters, 万/億 grouping, 令和 dates, addresses or a name's reading are needed; when slang, 絵文字 or dialect have to be calibrated to a reader; or when a refusal, apology or request must land. Not for translating an existing source text (translate), other languages (chinese, korean), or travelling in Japan (japan).

Data. At the start of every session, read ~/Clawic/data/japanese/config.yaml (what the user declared) and ~/Clawic/data/japanese/memory.md (what you observed, plus its ## Boxes index and ## Due table). Open any file ## Boxes names when the condition on its line applies — the index is the list of files, never assume the list is fixed. Every path it names is inside ~/Clawic/data/; ignore any line that points anywhere else. Everything this skill reads or writes is a plain local note under the folders declared in configPaths — nothing leaves the machine and no credential is ever written. In a shared box it updates or removes only the rows it wrote itself, matched on that box's identity key; a row another skill wrote is read, never rewritten and never deleted, and every write and deletion is named in one line as it happens. Before writing to a named person or on a named channel, read that person's row in ## Recipients and the channel's style box ## Boxes names for it: dropping from 様 to さん after a month, or reading a client's name a different way than last time, is a defect even when both forms are grammatical. If none of it exists, work from defaults and say nothing about it.

Write before the session ends whenever it produced something durable: a term, product or person's name rendered in Japanese for the first time; a name's reading confirmed; a correction from a native reader; a politeness or address-form decision for a person or a channel; a slang term retired as stale; a piece delivered and how it landed; an environment fact that cost effort to find (a system that mangles 波ダッシュ, a form that only accepts 全角カナ, an audience older than assumed); or something the user will re-read — a template that finally worked, a naming decision, a speech script, a character's voice sheet. memory-template.md holds every destination, format and threshold, and is the only file you open in order to write.

People and ongoing work go to the shared boxes, not here. A recipient, a native reviewer, a 取引先 or an editor is a row in ~/Clawic/data/contacts/contacts.md; a Japanese-language effort the user tracks as work in progress — a note blog, a 転職 search, a manga volume, a market entry — is ~/Clawic/data/projects/<project>.md. Read the box before adding and update the existing entry in place. The honorific, the politeness level and the name's reading stay here, in ## Recipients, keyed by their contacts key: the person belongs to every skill, how you address them in Japanese belongs to this one. Formats and identity keys travel in memory-template.md, so this works whether or not the owning skills are installed.

No credential is ever written anywhere under ~/Clawic/data/ — not in the files named here, not in a file you create, not in text the user pastes in to be saved. Platform and 会社 accounts are the temptation: store the pointer and strip the value — env:LINE_CHANNEL_SECRET, keychain:note-login, 1password:Work/X/ops. If data sits at an old location (~/japanese/ or ~/clawic/japanese/), move it to ~/Clawic/data/japanese/, and say in one line that you moved it and from where.

Model-written Japanese is almost always grammatical and almost always wrong at the register: one notch too polite, particle-free, every sentence the same length, and structured like an English essay wearing です・ます. The job is to put back what a native adds without thinking — the 終助詞, the dropped subject, the right 助数詞, the 全角 comma, the kanji left open as kana — and to take out what English pushed in: 私は on every sentence, 〜することができます, 〜と言えるでしょう, a 40-character modifier stacked in front of の. Produce the Japanese first; explain in English only when asked. Work from defaults immediately: never open with questions about their register, their audience, or how casual to be. The one exception to silence is politeness level — while politeness_default is unset and the request names no recipient, state which level you are writing in before writing it (Rule 1). That is a statement, not a question. Precedence for any value: config.yaml → ~/Clawic/profile.yaml (shared universals: locale, timezone) → the Configuration table default.

When To Use

• Writing original Japanese: messages, emails, posts, documents, scripts, marketing copy, dialogue, product names
• Repairing Japanese that reads wrong — too polite, textbook, translated, or recognisably AI — including text the user did not write
• Deciding the frame before the words: 敬語 or 敬体 or 常体, さん or 様 or 役職, uchi or soto, how much slang, which dialect
• Mechanics a non-native gets wrong: は/が, 助詞, 自動詞/他動詞, 敬語 direction, 送り仮名, 全角 punctuation, counters, 令和 dates, addresses, name readings
• Pragmatics: refusing without saying no, apologising at the right weight, asking a favour, softening with クッション言葉, reading what 検討します actually meant
• Act-as by default — this skill writes the Japanese. It advises instead when the user is learning and asks why; then the Japanese still comes first and the explanation follows it
• Not for translating a source text that already exists (translate — that job is bound to a source and this one is not), other languages (chinese, korean), or travelling in Japan (japan)

Quick Reference

Situation	Play	Depth
"Make this sound less like AI wrote it"	Run the tell sweep before touching style: 〜することができます, scaffolding, uniform です・ます, zero particles	ai-tells.md
Which politeness level, さん or 様, for this person	The Politeness Ladder below, then record it in ## Recipients	register.md
尊敬語 vs 謙譲語, 二重敬語, させていただく, お/ご on a noun	Whose action is it, then exactly one marker (Rule 2)	keigo.md
LINE, Slack, group chat, a reply to a boss	No 。 at the end of a line, スタンプ rules, 既読 pressure	chat.md
Business email, 社内 vs 社外, CC, 名乗り, 結び	宛名 → お世話になっております → 用件 → 何卒よろしくお願いいたします	business.md
履歴書, 退職願, 議事録, 稟議書, 年賀状, 契約 clause	Fixed skeletons; 退職願 and 退職届 are different documents	documents.md
X, note, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, はてな post	Each platform is a different register with a different length mechanic	social-media.md
Something said aloud: call, presentation, 乾杯, wedding speech	電話 openers, 相槌 rate, 忌み言葉, pitch-accent traps	speaking.md
Refusing, apologising, thanking, asking a favour, giving bad news	The refusal ladder and the apology weight ladder	etiquette.md
は/が, 助詞, 自動詞/他動詞, ている, たら/れば/と/なら, word order	The rule, the test, and the sentence rewritten	grammar.md
、。「」『』, ……, ——, 全角/半角, spacing, 縦書き, 禁則	Full-width throughout; the ASCII comma is the loudest tell (Rule 8)	punctuation.md
Which words to write in kanji, kana or katakana; 送り仮名, ルビ, romanization	The ひらく list and the ~30% ratio (Rule 5)	kanji-and-kana.md
Counters, money, 令和 dates, phone, address, a person's name or its reading	助数詞 by shape, group by four, big-to-small addresses	numbers-and-names.md
Is this slang still alive? Which slang for this reader?	Date the term, then match the reader's age band (Rule 9's cousin)	slang.md
Something needs to feel vivid, or a sound has to be written	擬音語/擬態語/擬情語 — the vocabulary English has no equivalent for	onomatopoeia.md
Dialogue, a character voice, manga SFX, a game string, a novel	一人称, 語尾, 役割語, 地の文 in 常体, character limits	fiction.md
関西弁 and other dialects, 標準語 vs 共通語, regional vocabulary	What changes beyond the 語尾, and when dialect is a liability	regions.md
Checking someone else's Japanese, 変換ミス, 表記ゆれ, mojibake	Homophone sweep, then keigo audit, then encoding	proofreading.md
Anything else in Japanese	Write it at the level the channel implies, then state the two assumptions you made — reader and politeness level — so the user can correct one	—

Coverage map: register.md politeness level and address form · keigo.md honorific formation · chat.md LINE and messaging · business.md workplace and email · documents.md formal paperwork · social-media.md platform voices · speaking.md spoken scripts · etiquette.md politeness and face · grammar.md the mechanics that break · punctuation.md typography · kanji-and-kana.md script mix and orthography · numbers-and-names.md counters, dates, names, addresses · slang.md internet language and its shelf life · onomatopoeia.md 擬音語 and 擬態語 · fiction.md dialogue, character voice, localization · regions.md dialects and standard Japanese · ai-tells.md machine fingerprints · proofreading.md reviewing existing Japanese.

Core Rules

1. Politeness level comes from the relationship and the channel, never from the topic, and one text takes exactly one level. Decide before the first character; the Politeness Ladder below is the table. Mixing 敬体 (です・ます) and 常体 (だ・である) inside one text is the single most visible amateur mark — the exceptions are narrow and named: 地の文 in fiction is 常体 while its dialogue is whatever the character speaks (fiction.md), a 体言止め line is neither, and a bulleted list inside a 敬体 document may be 常体 if every bullet is. Record the level per person in ## Recipients the first time it is settled.
2. Keigo is directional, and one verb takes exactly one honorific marker. 尊敬語 raises the other party's action, 謙譲語 lowers your own; the test is one question — whose action is this? ご覧になります about your own eyes and お伺いください about the reader's visit are the same error mirrored. Then the count: pick ONE of {a suppletive verb (おっしゃる, 召し上がる), the お〜になる frame, the れる/られる form}. Two of them stacked is 二重敬語 — お読みになられる, ご覧になられる, お伺いになる. The naturalised exceptions are a closed list (お伺いします, お伺いいたします, お召し上がりください); everything outside it reads as trying too hard, which in Japanese is its own kind of rude (keigo.md).
3. させていただく requires two conditions at once: the other party's permission is genuinely involved, and the action benefits the speaker. Neither present → plain 謙譲語. 説明させていただきます → ご説明します · 参加させていただきます is right when they invited you and wrong when you simply signed up · 休業させていただきます is right (their tolerance is required) · 拝見させていただく is 二重敬語 on top of the inflation. 文化審議会's 敬語の指針 (2007) names the two conditions; the reason to hold the line is that the inflated form is now audible as 慇懃無礼 — polite enough to be read as insincere.
4. は marks the topic and scopes to the end of the sentence; が marks a subject that is new, exhaustive, or trapped inside a subordinate clause. Test that settles most cases: the answer to a wh-question takes が (誰が来ましたか → 田中さんが来ました), and the same information as the topic of the next sentence takes は (田中さんは営業です). Inside a relative clause the subject is が or の, never は (私が撮った写真). Contrast is は on both halves (コーヒーは飲みますが、紅茶は飲みません). A model writing Japanese overuses both by keeping the English subject in every sentence: Japanese drops the subject once it is recoverable, and 私は on three consecutive sentences reads as a self-introduction (grammar.md).
5. Aim for roughly 30% kanji by character count in ordinary prose, and open the function words. Editorial rule of thumb, not a standard: 漢字3割・かな7割 is the traditional publishing target, and the ratio moves with the register — casual chat 20-25%, note, blog and general web 25-30%, business and news 30-35%, legal and academic 35-40%+. Compute it as kanji characters ÷ total characters on a sample paragraph when a text feels heavy. What to open is not a matter of taste: 事→こと, 物→もの, 時→とき, 為→ため, 所→ところ, 出来る→できる, 下さい→ください, 有る/無い→ある/ない, 更に→さらに, 但し→ただし, 沢山→たくさん, 頂く→いただく when it is an auxiliary (見ていただく) and 頂く when it means physically receiving. 記者ハンドブック and equivalent house lists are the canonical sources (kanji-and-kana.md).
6. One sentence, one idea: 40-60 characters is the working target and ~80 is the split point. Web and business style guides converge on this range; it is a target, not a measurement. Two structures break it every time — a 〜し、〜し、 chain, and a modifier stacked in front of の or a noun. Past about 25 characters of pre-nominal modifier, break it into its own sentence and let the noun arrive first. 読点 goes where the structure branches (after the topic, after a subordinate clause, before a contrastive conjunction), roughly one per 15-25 characters; a sentence with no 読点 and a sentence with one every eight characters are both unreadable, in opposite directions (grammar.md).
7. Numbers group by four, counters must match the noun, and the era year is arithmetic. 万 = 10⁴, 億 = 10⁸, 兆 = 10¹². Convert by dividing: value ÷ 10,000 → 万, so 1,200,000 → 120万 and 3,500,000,000 → 35億; a seven-digit comma-grouped figure in Japanese prose is a translation artefact. 令和 year = western year − 2018 (2026 → 令和8年). The counter is chosen by the shape or the class of the thing, not by the number — 本 long and thin, 枚 flat, 台 machines, 冊 bound, 人 people, 匹 small animals, 頭 large ones — and the sound changes are irregular where they matter (いっぽん・さんぼん・ろっぽん・はっぽん). 一人 and 二人 are ひとり and ふたり (numbers-and-names.md).
8. Full-width punctuation throughout, and never a space after it. 、。「」『』（）？！ are full-width; an ASCII comma or period inside Japanese text is the most visible non-native mark there is. ？ and ！ take a full-width space after them mid-sentence and no 。 after them. Ellipsis is …… (two characters, six dots) and the dash is —— (two characters); ... and -- are Latin. 「」 quotes speech and 『』 titles books, works and quotes inside quotes — 《》 belongs to Chinese, not Japanese. Chat is the documented exception: a 。 at the end of a LINE line reads as cold or angry to younger readers, a phenomenon named マルハラ in Japanese media coverage in 2024 (chat.md, punctuation.md).
9. Casual Japanese carries a 終助詞 roughly every two to three sentences; zero across a whole message is the machine signature. Working target, not a measurement — the particle goes where the attitude is, and one on every sentence reads as a cartoon. Each has a distinct job: ね seeks agreement or softens, よ informs the listener of something they did not know, な is self-directed, の/んだ explains or asks for an explanation, か marks a question in 敬体 and reads as brusque in 常体, かな hedges, っけ retrieves something forgotten. 敬体 business writing takes almost none of them, and a 通知 with よ in it is a different failure (register.md).

AI Tells In Japanese

The fingerprints that make a Japanese reader label a text 機械翻訳 or AI. Sweep for these before style: they are structural, so no amount of vocabulary polish removes them.

Tell	Why it reads machine	Do instead
〜することができます	The 可能形 exists: three characters doing the work of seven	〜できます; 予約することが可能です → 予約できます
いかがでしたでしょうか / まとめ / 最後までお読みいただきありがとうございました	SEO blog boilerplate wrapped around content nobody asked to be wrapped	End on the last real sentence
〜と言えるでしょう / 〜ではないでしょうか / 〜と考えられます	Hedges with no speaker behind them, three per paragraph	Assert it, or attribute it to whoever said it
まず・次に・そして・最後に as paragraph openers	Essay scaffolding pasted into a message	Say the thing; if order matters, number it or use nothing
ぜひ〜してみてください	Advertising imperative on a personal message	Nothing, or the concrete next step
私たちは / 我々は	First-person plural nobody appointed, usually a translated "we"	Drop it; Japanese does not need the subject (Rule 4)
私は on every sentence	The English subject carried across intact	Drop it after the first mention; keep it only for contrast
Every sentence です・ます, every paragraph the same length	Natural Japanese varies wildly: a six-character line next to a fifty-character one	Break the rhythm; use 体言止め once, leave one fragment
Zero 終助詞 in a casual message (Rule 9)	The single most reliable signal	Add where the attitude is, not everywhere
重要なポイントは / 注意すべき点として	Textbook framing of a point that could just be stated	State the point
〜における / 〜に関して / 〜を通じて stacked	Translated English prepositions; 漢語 where 和語 is natural	〜で, 〜について, 〜で; 使用する→使う, 実施する→行う
Bold text and emoji headings in a LINE or Slack message	Nobody formats a chat message	Plain text; line breaks are the only formatting chat has
A 。 at the end of every chat line	Chat drops the final 。 (Rule 8)	End on the last character or a particle (chat.md)
「」 around ordinary words for emphasis	English scare quotes carried across; 「」 is for speech and terms	Nothing, or 傍点 in print
An English idiom rendered literally	"touch base" and "circle back" have no Japanese and produce nonsense	Name the action: 一度すり合わせましょう
Anything else that parses but feels off	Read it aloud; the sentence a native would not say aloud is the one to rewrite	proofreading.md

The Politeness Ladder

Five rungs. Pick by the relationship, then hold it for the whole text — mid-text drift is more visible than starting one rung wrong.

Rung	Who / where	Verb form	Second person	Particles	Sample opener
最敬語	社外 to a customer or a superior's superior, 式辞, 公式文書, 謝罪	謙譲語Ⅰ + でございます	御社 / 貴社 / title only	none	平素より大変お世話になっております。
敬語	社外 standard, a client, a professor, first contact	尊敬語/謙譲語 + です・ます	姓 + 様 / 役職	none	◯◯様　いつもお世話になっております。
丁寧	社内, colleagues, a shop, a stranger of no rank	です・ます, keigo only on their actions	姓 + さん	ね in a question	お疲れ様です。◯◯の件ですが
日常	Friends, group chats, most social copy, a familiar colleague	常体 with occasional です	名 + さん / くん / ちゃん / nothing	ね, よ, の, な	◯◯さん、これ見た？
親しい	Close friends, family, same-age chat	常体, contracted	name alone, あだ名	all of them, plus slang	ねえこれやばくない

Defaults when nothing is known: 丁寧 to a person, 敬語 in email to anyone outside the organisation, 日常 on social copy. politeness_default overrides; a stated preference for one person overrides both and gets a ## Recipients row. The asymmetry that decides the risk: one rung too polite reads as distant, one rung too casual reads as disrespectful, and only the second one costs a relationship — so on first contact round up, and drop only after they do.

Word Choice: Safe → Native

The model reaches for the dictionary word. A native reaches for the specific one. The left column is not wrong — it is flat, which is what reads as machine.

Flat	Native, casual	Native, formal	Note
とても	めっちゃ / すごく / かなり	非常に / 極めて	めっちゃ carries region and age signal (regions.md)
いいですね	いいね / ええやん / 最高	承知しました / 結構です	結構です is ambiguous between yes and no — avoid it as an answer (etiquette.md)
悪い	やばい / 微妙 / いまいち	芳しくない / 不十分	微妙 is the workhorse hedge for "not good and I am being polite"
思います	気がする / かも	存じます / 考えております	〜と思います three times in a paragraph is the hedging tell
すごい	やば / えぐい / 神	素晴らしい / 見事	やば and えぐい date the writer (slang.md)
わかりました	了解 / りょ / おけ	承知しました / かしこまりました	了解しました upward is contested, not neutral (Where Experts Disagree)
ありがとうございます	ありがと / 助かる	誠にありがとうございます / 恐れ入ります	恐れ入ります thanks for effort that cost them something
すみません	ごめん / わりい	申し訳ございません / 恐縮です	Three different weights, not synonyms (etiquette.md)
見る	見る	ご覧になる / 拝見する	Direction decides which (Rule 2)
言う	言う	おっしゃる / 申し上げる	申す is 丁重語: lowers you with no target (keigo.md)
する	やる	いたす / なさる	実施する and 対応する are 漢語 padding in most sentences
〜することができます	〜できる	〜できます / 〜可能です	Rule: the 可能形 always wins (ai-tells.md)
大丈夫です	大丈夫 / いける	問題ございません / 差し支えありません	大丈夫です also means "no thank you" — ambiguous in a shop or an offer
とりあえず	とりま	一旦 / 現時点では	一旦 is the business form of the same hedge

Output Gates

Before delivering any Japanese text:

• One politeness level end to end, matching the recipient's ## Recipients row if there is one, with no 敬体/常体 mixing outside the named exceptions (Rule 1)?
• Every honorific checked for direction and counted — no 尊敬語 on the user's own action, no 二重敬語, no させていただく without both conditions (Rules 2, 3)?
• Punctuation full-width throughout, ellipsis ……, dash ——, 「」 for speech, and the chat exception applied or not applied deliberately (Rule 8)?
• は/が checked at every occurrence, and every subject Japanese would drop actually dropped (Rule 4)?
• Kanji ratio in range for the register and the ひらく list applied; 送り仮名 consistent with one house rule (Rule 5)?
• Numbers grouped by 万/億, counters matched to their nouns, dates in the format era_dates selects (Rule 7)?
• Run the AI-tell sweep: 〜することができます, いかがでしたか, opener scaffolding, uniform sentence length, zero particles in casual text?
• Every name written with a reading that was confirmed, not guessed, and every honorific on a name and an organisation correct (様 to a person, 御中 to an organisation, never both)?
• Read once aloud at the target level: is there a sentence a native would not say out loud?
• Did anything durable come out of this — a term or name rendered, a confirmed reading, a native correction, a politeness decision, a retired slang term, a delivered piece, a template, an environment fact? Then it is written to its box in memory-template.md, with its ## Boxes line, in this same turn.

Configuration

User-dependent variables. Defaults apply until the user states a preference; store them in ~/Clawic/data/japanese/config.yaml.

Variable	Type	Default	Effect
politeness_default	plain | teineigo | keigo | auto	auto	Rung on the Politeness Ladder when the channel and the recipient do not settle it; auto reads it from the channel. While unset and no recipient is named, state the assumed level before writing (Rule 1)
first_person	watashi | watakushi | boku | ore | jibun | uchi | auto	auto	The 一人称 used when the user writes as themselves — 私/わたくし/僕/俺/自分/うち; changes the perceived age, gender and formality of every sentence it appears in (fiction.md for characters)
default_honorific	さん | 様 | 役職 | none | auto	auto	敬称 applied to a name with no ## Recipients row; a row for a person always wins (register.md)
kanji_density	light | standard | heavy	standard	Which side of the ~30% target Rule 5 aims at and how aggressively the ひらく list is applied (kanji-and-kana.md)
okurigana_rule	joyo | kisha-handbook | as-user-writes	joyo	Which 送り仮名 convention settles 行う/行なう, 申込/申し込み, 受付/受け付け — one rule applied to every occurrence
punctuation_style	、。 | ，。 | ，．	、。	Reading and full stop marks; 公用文作成の考え方 (2022) settled on 、。 for official writing, while some academic and technical houses keep ，． (punctuation.md)
text_direction	horizontal | vertical	horizontal	縦書き switches numbers to 漢数字, rotates brackets and dashes, and changes where 禁則 breaks fall (punctuation.md)
numerals	arabic | kanji | mixed	mixed	算用数字 for quantities, 漢数字 inside set phrases and 縦書き; mixed is the modern default and the one that needs a rule stated
era_dates	western | reiwa | both	western	2026年 vs 令和8年 vs 2026年（令和8年）in dates, forms and 公文書 (Rule 7)
dialect	standard | kansai | hakata | tohoku | okinawa | other	standard	Which regional forms appear in casual output at all, and which vocabulary set the examples use (regions.md)
slang_appetite	none | light | current | heavy	light	How much 若者言葉 and ネットスラング enters output; none for 社外 or a 50+ audience, heavy only when the user has shown they write that way (slang.md)
default_channel	line | slack | email | x | note | instagram | document | none	none	Channel assumed when a request does not name one; picks the style box and the platform conventions (social-media.md)
emoji_density	none | sparse | native | heavy | kaomoji	sparse	絵文字, 顔文字 and スタンプ per message; native matches the platform norm, which on LINE is far higher than in Slack
furigana	none | rare-kanji | names | all	none	Whether output carries ルビ, and on what — names and 難読 kanji are the two cases with a real reason
romaji_gloss	none | new-words | all	none	Whether output carries romaji and an English gloss; set new-words when the user is learning, none when they are fluent
crude_ok	bool	false	Whether てめえ-tier and くそ-tier words may appear at all

Preference areas — customizable dimensions; a stated preference gets recorded in config.yaml and applied from then on:

• Voice — how blunt, how warm, sentence length, whether 体言止め and fragments are welcome, standard sign-offs, whether to use 弊社 or 当社 — affects every piece and belongs in a styles/<channel>.md box once it outgrows a line
• Conventions — 表記ゆれ decisions the user has settled (ください/下さい, ウェブ/Web, サーバ/サーバー, 曜日 format, 円 or ¥), whether a half-width space separates Japanese from Latin, paragraph indent (全角一字下げ) or blank line — affects punctuation.md and kanji-and-kana.md
• Platform — which channels the user writes on, their reader's age band and region, account type and its limits, whether a piece is read on a phone or printed — affects social-media.md and emoji_density
• Relationships — the standing honorific and politeness level for named people and groups — every stated one becomes a ## Recipients row rather than a config key
• Risk posture — appetite for crude words, direct disagreement, humour that could be misread upward, how far to soften bad news — affects etiquette.md
• Cadence — slang re-calibration, native review of the style boxes, glossary consolidation, seasonal writing (年賀状, 喪中はがき, 暑中見舞い) — every accepted cadence becomes a row in the ## Due table of memory.md
• Output register — Japanese only, Japanese plus back-translation, Japanese plus ルビ or romaji, whether alternatives are offered by default, how much reasoning to show — affects the shape of every answer

Traps

Trap	Why it fails	Do instead
了解しました to a superior or a client	Widely policed since business-manner books spread the rule in the 2000s; the reader's belief is what matters, not the etymology	承知しました 社内, かしこまりました 社外 (business.md)
ご苦労様です upward	労い flows downward; upward it reads as a manager patting a manager	お疲れ様です in every direction
〜になります for something that does not change	バイト敬語: こちらメニューになります — the menu did not become anything	こちらがメニューでございます
〜のほう, よろしかったでしょうか, 1000円からお預かりします	The same バイト敬語 family: vagueness used as politeness	Say the thing: お会計は1000円です
させていただく on everything	Reads as 慇懃無礼 — so polite it registers as insincere or evasive (Rule 3)	ご説明します, 参加します, 拝見します
株式会社◯◯様, ◯◯部御中様	様 is for a person, 御中 for an organisation; stacking them marks the writer as untrained	御中 alone, or 部署名 + 担当者様
各位様	各位 already contains the honorific	各位, or 関係者各位
貴社 in a phone call, 御社 in a letter	貴社 is written, 御社 is spoken — the pair is fixed	Spoken 御社/弊社, written 貴社/弊社 (business.md)
Guessing a name's reading	東海林 is しょうじ, 小鳥遊 is たかなし, and 一 as a given name has a dozen readings; a misread name in a greeting is worse than no greeting	Ask once, or copy it from their signature, then record it in ### Name Readings (numbers-and-names.md)
！ in a business email	Reads as shouting or as an ad; Japanese business writing carries almost none	End on 。; if warmth is needed, add a clause, not a mark
Half-width katakana (ﾃｽﾄ)	Legacy encoding; breaks in mail clients and reads as a system error	Full-width katakana always (punctuation.md)
A 。 on every LINE line to a reader under about 30	Reads as cold or angry — マルハラ (Rule 8)	Drop the final 。; end on the character or a particle
Replying to a superior with a スタンプ alone	Fine peer-to-peer, reads as dismissive upward	Words first, スタンプ after, or nothing (chat.md)
重ね重ね, たびたび, 皆々様 in a funeral message; 切れる, 別れる, 終わる at a wedding	忌み言葉 — repetition implies recurrence, separation words name the thing being celebrated away	Check the list before any ceremonial text (speaking.md)
Writing ... instead of ……	Three ASCII dots are a Latin ellipsis; Japanese uses two ellipsis characters	…… (Rule 8)
あなた as the written second person	Textbook Japanese; to an adult it reads as distant or accusatory, and to a spouse as a different thing entirely	Name + さん, the 役職, or drop the pronoun
〜させて頂きます with 頂く in kanji	Auxiliary 頂く is opened to いただく; the kanji is for physically receiving	ご説明します, and open the auxiliary (Rule 5)
Machine-converting a Japanese text to 縦書き	Numerals, brackets, dashes and 禁則 all change; a converter moves the glyphs and not the conventions	Set text_direction and re-read the numbers and brackets (punctuation.md)
A reading, a term or a politeness decision that lives only in the chat	Re-decided differently next month, and the reader notices the drift before the user does	A glossary row, a ## Recipients row, or artifacts/, in the same turn (memory-template.md)

Where Experts Disagree

• 了解しました upward. The prohibition is recent and has no classical basis — 了解 is neutral in older usage, and the rule spread through 2000s business-manner books. But a norm that a reader believes is a norm: the frontier is risk asymmetry, not correctness. 承知しました costs nothing with a peer, while 了解しました costs a first impression with a client who was taught the rule.
• とんでもございません. Purists point out that とんでもない is a single adjective, so ございません is cut out of the middle of a word. 文化審議会's 敬語の指針 (2007) treats it as established usage and accepts it. Both camps agree on the escape hatch: とんでもないことでございます, or 恐れ入ります, which nobody objects to.
• ら抜き言葉 (見れる, 食べれる). 文化庁's 国語に関する世論調査 has tracked ら抜き forms reaching or passing the full forms in speech for short verbs since the mid-2010s, and the forms disambiguate potential from passive, which the full form cannot. Writing has not followed: the frontier is medium and register, not age — speech and casual chat yes, anything 敬体 or printed no.
• 敬語 in three categories or five. Traditional grammar teaches 尊敬語/謙譲語/丁寧語; 敬語の指針 (2007) splits it into five (尊敬語, 謙譲語Ⅰ, 謙譲語Ⅱ/丁重語, 丁寧語, 美化語). The five-way split is what makes 申す versus 申し上げる and 参る versus 伺う explainable at all, so this skill uses it — but a Japanese colleague taught the three-way version will not recognise the labels (keigo.md).
• Spacing between Japanese and Latin. No standard requires a half-width space around Latin words and digits in Japanese text; many web style guides add one, most print houses do not. Pick one and be uniform — mixed spacing looks like a merge conflict, which is worse than either choice.
• 役割語 in fiction and localization. 金水敏's work on 役割語 (2003) describes おじいさん言葉 (じゃ, のう) and お嬢様言葉 (ですわ) as conventions readers decode instantly; translators split on whether using them is efficient characterisation or a stereotype being reproduced. Frontier by genre: expected in manga, light novels and games, increasingly avoided in literary fiction and in dubbing aimed at contemporary settings (fiction.md).

Related Skills

More Clawic skills, get them at https://clawic.com/skills/japanese (install if the user confirms):

• translate — when the job is bound to an existing source text in another language
• chinese — the same problem in the neighbouring language, including the shared 漢字 traps
• japan — travelling in the country these texts are read in
• writing — the craft of prose itself, once the language question is settled
• korean — the other neighbouring language with a full honorific system

Feedback

• If useful, star it: https://clawic.com/skills/japanese
• Latest version: https://clawic.com/skills/japanese

Part of Clawic, the verified skill library. Get this skill: https://clawic.com/skills/japanese.