Japanese Writing a Review Online: Restaurants, Hotels and Products

The shape of a Japanese review

Most Japanese reviews follow the same loose order, and following it makes your writing instantly recognisable as a review rather than an essay. First comes the context: when you went, with whom, and what the occasion was. Second, what you ordered or which room you stayed in. Third, the specifics you liked, usually two or three. Fourth, anything that could be improved, softened. Last, a closing line: whether you would go again, and who you would recommend it to.

The register is polite written Japanese, desu and masu, with short sentences. The topic is usually dropped, because the reader knows you are talking about the restaurant, so you do not need watashi wa at all.

Stars, scores and rating language

Stars are hoshi, and most sites use a five-point scale, go-dankai hyōka. In text, reviewers write hoshi yottsu, four stars, or use the score directly: san-ten go, 3.5. Japanese reviewers tend to be restrained with the top score, so hoshi mittsu with warm text is often a positive review, and a restaurant averaging 3.5 on a major food site can be excellent. When you rate, match your text: a four-star review with only complaints confuses readers.

It is common to explain a rating in one sentence, especially when it is not the maximum. Reviewers write hoshi hitotsu genten, one star deducted, and give the reason, or hoshi go de mo ii kurai, it could easily be five stars.

Describing taste, rooms and service

Specific praise is what makes a review useful. For food, go beyond oishii: say what was oishii and why. Useful adjectives are kōbashii, fragrant and toasty; sappari, light and refreshing; kotteri, rich and heavy; jūshī, juicy; and mocchiri, pleasantly chewy. Portion size is ryō, and ryō ga ōi means generous. Price is talked about through kosupa, cost performance, and ryōshin-teki, reasonable.

For hotels, reviewers comment on the heya, room; beddo, bed; the amenities, ameniti; the chōshoku, breakfast; the ōfuro or daiyokujō, bath; and cleanliness, seiketsu-kan. For service, the key nouns are taiō, how staff dealt with you, and sekkyaku, customer service. Teinei, polite and careful, and kanji ga ii, gave a good impression, are the two most reused compliments in Japanese reviews.

Polite criticism that readers trust

Japanese readers trust a review that includes a small, fair criticism more than one that is all praise. The technique is to state the fact, soften it, and balance it. Softeners include sukoshi and chotto, a little; kana and kamo shiremasen, maybe; and ki ga shimashita, it felt like. A common frame is X wa sukoshi Y deshita ga, Z wa yokatta desu: X was a bit Y, but Z was good.

Some criticisms are framed as personal taste rather than fault: watashi ni wa, for me, or kojin-teki ni wa, personally. Others are framed as a wish: mō sukoshi ... to ureshii desu, I'd be glad if it were a bit more ... . Avoid words like saiaku, the worst, and hidoi, terrible, unless something genuinely serious happened; they make the writer look unreasonable. If you had a real problem, describe what happened and how staff responded.

A full model restaurant review

Here is a complete review of an izakaya, the kind of text you can copy in structure and swap the details. It is nine sentences long, uses polite form throughout, praises specifics, includes one softened criticism and ends with a recommendation. Read each row aloud before you adapt it.

Sentence patterns you can reuse

The patterns below cover most of what a review needs. Slot in your own nouns and adjectives and you can write a review of almost anything, from a bakery to a pair of headphones.

• X de riyō shimashita: I went for X (lunch, a birthday, a business trip)
• X o chūmon shimashita: I ordered X
• X wa Y de, toku ni Z ga yokatta desu: X was Y, and Z in particular was good
• X ga totemo teinei deshita: X (the staff, the service) was very polite and careful
• X wa sukoshi Y kana to omoimashita: I felt X was maybe a little Y
• Tada, X: That said, X (introduces the one criticism)
• X to ureshii desu: I'd be glad if X (a wish framed as a suggestion)
• Mata X shitai to omoimasu: I'd like to X again (go, stay, order)
• X ni osusume desu: recommended for X (families, couples, solo diners)

Notice that almost none of these use watashi. In a review the writer is understood, so adding watashi wa to every sentence is one of the quickest ways to sound translated.

Vocabulary for writing and reading reviews

These are the words that appear again and again in Japanese reviews. Learn them for reading as much as for writing: once you can skim for taiō, kosupa and seiketsu-kan, you can judge a place from its reviews in a minute.

When reading, watch for tada and demo in the middle of a review: what follows is the honest part. Also watch for sakura, a slang word for fake positive reviews, and for reviews that mention nothing specific at all.

Mistakes that make a review read like machine translation

A few habits mark a review as translated from English. The most common is starting every sentence with watashi wa. The second is overusing totemo and subarashii instead of concrete adjectives; Japanese reviewers say what was good rather than how good it was. The third is direct translations of English review clichés, such as calling food to die for or saying the staff went above and beyond, which have no natural equivalent and sound odd when forced into Japanese.

Also avoid mixing plain and polite forms, long sentences with several clauses, and an exclamation mark on every line; one or two are fine. Finally, do not name staff by full name or include other customers in your photos, both considered poor manners on Japanese review sites.