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Introducing Your Japanese Partner to Your Family

Help Everyone Make The Best First Impression

By Rachel Crane |
November 3, 2024 |
Families, Relationships

If you’re ready for your partner to meet your family, then these tips will help you bridge the culture gap and make sure everyone has a great time.

Introducing your Japanese partner to your family might feel like a big step, but it’s likely an even bigger deal for them. Traditionally, introductions to a Japanese partner’s parents go hand-in-hand with marriage proposals. Although this trend is changing nowadays it will depend heavily on the family involved.

In my boyfriend’s case, he’s never talked about his love life with his family, let alone introduced a partner. So when I told him that I wanted him to meet my parents and brother when they visited Japan, he was surprised, and very nervous. On the flip side, my family were keen to get on well with him without committing any cultural faux pas.

I had my own worries, too. My boyfriend and I have a multilingual relationship, but would my family be able to communicate with him? Would he be traumatized by the unstoppable force of my mother’s hugs?

Despite everyone’s reservations, introducing my Japanese partner to my family turned out to be a huge success. Everyone found plenty to talk about, and lots of laughs were had. For the most part, things went well naturally. But I was glad I had done some groundwork to prepare everyone for the occasion.

With that in mind, here’s some advice to help you prepare for introducing your Japanese partner to your family.

Things To Tell Your Family

If your family are anything like mine, they’ll be just as keen to make a good impression on your partner as the other way around! A few simple tips should help them feel more at ease.

Hugs and kisses aren’t common greetings.

Hugging and kissing are unusual even between close friends and family members in Japan, so warn your family that your partner might be overwhelmed with this kind of hello. Likewise, your partner probably won’t expect a formal Japanese bow. A friendly handshake will do.

Teach your family a few Japanese phrases to show care and respect.

Just as you may teach your Japanese partner a few basic phrases in English, having your family know some Japanese can leave a good impression on both sides. Here are some useful expressions they could try using:

hajimemashite (nice to meet you)
yoroshiku onegaishimasu (literally, ‘please take care of me’)

If you’re eating together, your family might want to say:

ittadakimasu (before eating a meal)
gochisousamma deshita (to the restaurant staff after the meal or after eating)

Include them in the conversation.

Even if your partner has great English, they may still struggle to understand when your family speaks at native speed. Especially with local slang and all sorts of cultural shorthand. It’s easy for family members to underestimate how excluded this might make your partner feel, so encourage them to slow things down and keep your partner involved in the conversation.

Understand that you may not have met their family.

For cultural reasons, you may be introducing your Japanese partner to your family without having met theirs. This is because meeting the parents in Japan is often a precursor to marriage. So, if you’re not looking at engagement rings just yet, it’s a good idea to explain to your family why this imbalance is not necessarily a red flag.

Prepping Your Partner

My boyfriend initially had a few qualms about meeting my family. Thankfully, I was able to use these steps to win him around.

Explain the cultural difference.

Depending on how old-fashioned your partner and their family are, they may associate meeting the parents with marriage. Explain that this isn’t usually the case in your culture. On the contrary, your family might be alarmed if you did get engaged to someone they had never met. They could even take offense if your partner declines to meet them. Tell your partner that this meeting will mean a lot to you—without meaning you expect a ring!

Familiarize them with your family.

If you’re sure your family will get along well with your partner, tell them so! You can point out things they have in common, describe your relatives’ personalities and show them photos. This way, your partner won’t feel like they’re going in cold.

Show them western movies or TV shows.

Family sitcoms like Schitt’s Creek and Gavin and Stacey include storylines where characters are introduced to their partner’s family members without an engagement. These examples can give your partner a tongue-in-cheek model for what the meeting might look like—as long as they don’t take it too seriously!

Reassure them you’ll be there to translate.

If your partner is worried about being able to communicate, tell them that you’re more than ready to bridge the language gap. You can even practice some of the questions your family is likely to ask so that they feel comfortable talking about things like their work and interests.

What To Do On The Day

Once the date for the meeting is set, it’s time to think about where you’ll get together and what you’ll do so that everyone can relax and get to know one another. Here are some suggestions.

Meet for lunch or dinner.

Getting together for a nice meal is always a safe bet. Avoid over-formalized restaurant settings so that the meeting doesn’t resemble an official introduction following an engagement. Instead, choose something casual, like a conveyor belt sushi restaurant or a pizza place. Keep the atmosphere light.

Plan a fun activity.

If your family and your partner have things in common, it’s a great idea to plan an activity that everyone can bond over. You might want to visit a cultural site like a shrine or temple, go to an exhibition or even watch a baseball game!

Be ready to interpret.

Depending on the language skills of everyone involved, you will probably have to do a bit of translation work. Being ready and willing to interpret, including summarizing things for your partner when your family members are talking among themselves, will make everyone feel more comfortable and help them to have a good time.

Advice For LGBTQ+ Couples

Same-sex marriage is not yet legalized in Japan, and significant stigma remains around being LGBTQ+. Many people are not out at work or with their families. This might make your partner especially nervous about meeting your family. Explain to them that your family is accepting and welcoming. They may even find reassurance in being embraced for who they are by your family if they can’t be open with their own.

Of course, it’s not always the case that Japanese families are more conservative. One episode of the popular Netflix reality show Queer Eye in Japan provides a lovely example of a young gay man introducing his Canadian boyfriend to his mother and brother, which you and your partner may want to use as a model for your own introduction.

How Did It Go?

As soon as they were introduced, it was clear my boyfriend and my family would get along. At the end of their first meeting, my boyfriend commented on how kind and gentle my dad was—even going so far as to say he struck him as quite Japanese in his manner.

While he could never say the same about my mum (who immediately disregarded the no-hug advice) he quickly got used to her touchy-feely ways. When it was time to say goodbye, he was able to anticipate and initiate the final hug. My mother was so delighted that she kept squealing, “he hugged me!” for the rest of the day.

Now, I’ve moved on to preparing everyone for the next challenge: bringing my boyfriend home for Christmas in the UK!

Do you have any advice for introducing your Japanese partner to your family? Let us know in the comments!

Introducing Your Japanese Partner to Your Family