September 12, 2026 The Word That Still Trips Me Up at Work

Hello to all our visionary investors, global families, and brave pioneers! Magandang araw po! 

It is Anna, your bilingual client liaison and content specialist at Anhome. 

Welcome to another Culture Saturday with us!

Most of my work here is behind the scenes shooting and editing videos, putting together flyers, in English and Japanese. But every so often, a foreign client is in the middle of buying a property, and I step into a different role: explaining, in English, what's actually happening in the process.

This week, one of Yatsuka's posts covered a term that comes up on Japanese property disclosure forms: "boundary encroachment" something as small as a roof edge or a fence sitting slightly over the property line. It's a good example of the kind of moment I run into. It's not a phrase from everyday conversation. It's not something I can guess my way through.

That matters to me more than it might sound like it should, because of how I try to work in general. If I don't know something, I ask I don't fill in the gap with a guess and hope it's close enough. It's the same instinct whether I'm confirming a detail with a coworker or making sure I'm about to tell a client something that's actually correct. With a term like this, getting it slightly wrong isn't a small mistake it could make someone think there's a serious problem with a property when there isn't, or the opposite.

So when something like this comes up, I don't try to sound like I already know it perfectly. I check. I ask. I make sure the explanation I give actually matches what the term means, not just what it sounds like it means. It's slower than winging it, but it's the only way I trust the answer I'm giving.

I think that's honestly the throughline in most of what I do here, whether it's a video edit, a flyer, or a client question I wasn't expecting: do it properly, ask when unsure, and don't sit on it.

Get in touch

If you're one of our visionary investors, global families, or brave pioneers with a real estate question that doesn't quite translate, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm here to help with. Reach out anytime.

Phone: 072-489-5661

— Anna