宿題
しゅくだい
shukudai
= homework; assignment; pending task
宿題 (shukudai) means homework or an assigned task — the word every Japanese student knows intimately. Beyond school, it’s extended in business contexts to mean ‘a pending issue’ or ‘something to follow up on,’ making it a word that follows you from childhood right through your career.
Shukudai (宿題) primarily means homework or a school assignment. Common usage: 宿題をやる (shukudai wo yaru — to do homework), 宿題を出す (shukudai wo dasu — to give homework, said by teacher), 宿題を忘れた (shukudai wo wasureta — I forgot my homework). Extended business use: 宿題として持ち帰る (shukudai toshite mochikaeru — to take it back as a pending item), 宿題が残っている (shukudai ga nokotte iru — there are still pending matters). The business usage is widespread in meetings: 「宿題にさせてください」(shukudai ni sasete kudasai — please let me take this as a pending item to follow up on).
In Japanese business meetings, 宿題 is a polite and professional way to defer an answer: 「その点については宿題にさせていただきます」(sono ten ni tsuite wa shukudai ni sasete itadakimasu — I would like to take that point as a pending item). This is not evasion — it signals that the question deserves careful consideration and a proper answer will be provided later. It’s far more professional than answering off the cuff. Compare 課題 (kadai — a challenge/issue/task to be addressed) which is used for broader ongoing challenges rather than specific follow-up items.
宿題 (shukudai) combines 宿 (shuku — lodging, resting, staying overnight) + 題 (dai — topic, title, question, problem). The 宿 character’s sense of ‘staying/overnight’ gives 宿題 its literal flavor: work you take home with you overnight. 題 appears in 問題 (mondai — problem), 話題 (wadai — topic of conversation), 課題 (kadai — assignment, issue, challenge).
Everyday use
宿題が多くて今日は遊べない。
Shukudai ga ookute kyou wa asobenai.
I have so much homework I can’t hang out today.
Casual / Social Media
夏休みの宿題、最終日まで溜めてしまった。毎年これ
Natsuyasumi no shukudai, saishuu-bi made tamete shimatta. Maitoshi kore
I let summer vacation homework pile up until the last day. This happens every year
Formal / Cultural context
会議における「宿題」は、その場での即答を避け事後に情報収集・検討の上で回答することを表明するビジネス慣行であり、議事録には「宿題事項」として記録され、担当者と期限が明示されることで組織的フォローアップが確保される。
Kaigi ni okeru ‘shukudai’ wa, sono ba de no sokutou wo sake jigo ni jouhou shoushu kentou no ue de kaitou suru koto wo hyoumei suru bijinesu kankou de ari, gijiroku ni wa ‘shukudai jikou’ toshite kiroku sare, tantousha to kigen ga meiji sareru koto de soshikiteki foroa appu ga kakuho sareru.
The ‘shukudai’ practice in business meetings is a convention of declaring that one will avoid an immediate on-the-spot answer and respond after gathering information and deliberating afterward, and it is recorded in meeting minutes as ‘pending items’ with the responsible person and deadline made explicit to ensure organizational follow-up.
Japanese homework culture is notoriously demanding at certain levels of education. Elementary school children regularly receive daily worksheets for kanji practice and arithmetic drills. The 夏休みの宿題 (natsuyasumi no shukudai — summer vacation homework) is a distinctly Japanese institution: a packet of assigned work that spans the entire 40-day summer break, including 自由研究 (jiyuu kenkyuu — free research project) and 読書感想文 (dokusho kansoubun — book report). The last-day scramble to complete it is a universal Japanese childhood memory.
The extension of 宿題 into business language reflects how Japanese professional culture borrowed educational vocabulary to describe meeting dynamics. In Japanese corporate meetings, decisions are often deferred rather than made on the spot — group consensus (nemawashi, ringi) is required, and 宿題 is the polite mechanism for deferral. A well-run Japanese meeting ends with a clear list of 宿題事項 (shukudai jikou — pending action items) with assigned owners and deadlines, functioning like a classroom homework assignment for the adult professional world.
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