Business Japanese training
Japanese where the register is the message.
Corporate Japanese training for teams working with Japanese clients, partners and head offices. Keigo, meeting protocol and the consensus process behind the decision are trained as commercial skills — because in Japanese business, how something is said carries as much weight as what is said.
Why companies buy this
Correct Japanese can still be the wrong Japanese.
In Japanese, politeness is not decoration. It is how seniority, obligation and intent are encoded.
Learners who study general Japanese arrive able to say what they mean and unable to say it appropriately. The grammar is right, the politeness level is not, and to a Japanese client the effect ranges from oddly casual to unintentionally cold.
The second difficulty is procedural. Decisions are built before the meeting, not in it: consensus is assembled quietly, objections are raised indirectly, and a Western team that treats the meeting as the moment of decision spends a year confused about why nothing concluded.
Both are trainable. Honorific language is a system, not a mystery, and the consensus process is legible once you can hear how disagreement is actually expressed.
Our tutor selection and matching is reviewed by The Good Schools Guide, and Learn&Co is a member of The Tutors' Association.
Who the programme is for
Who inside the organisation needs Japanese?
Teams working with a Japanese parent or client
People reporting to a Tokyo head office or managing a Japanese account, who need to follow meetings, read the room and correspond in an appropriate register.
Executives and relationship owners
Leaders responsible for a Japanese partnership: greetings, introductions, hospitality, and enough spoken Japanese to be visibly committed to the relationship.
Technical, engineering and product teams
Specialists working with Japanese counterparts on specifications, quality and product detail, where precision and the correct level of deference both matter.
Staff relocating to Japan
Professionals moving to a Tokyo or Osaka office who need workplace Japanese, written conventions and the social protocol of a Japanese office from day one.
What we actually train
The business Japanese that decides outcomes.
Keigo as a working system
Teineigo, sonkeigo and kenjōgo trained by situation — who you are speaking to, about whom, in front of whom — until the correct register is automatic rather than calculated.
Introductions and meishi exchange
Self-introduction, company introduction, business-card protocol and seating conventions: the first four minutes that set how the rest of the relationship is conducted.
Nemawashi and the real decision process
How consensus is built before a meeting, how ringi approval travels, and how to participate in that process rather than waiting for a decision in the room.
Indirectness, refusal and silence
Hearing a no that is never said as no, using softened refusal yourself, and reading the pauses that carry meaning in a Japanese meeting.
Written Japanese and email conventions
Business email structure, set phrases, apology and gratitude formulas, and the level of formality expected in internal versus external correspondence.
Sector vocabulary and kanji you actually need
The terminology and characters that appear in your documents — finance, trading, engineering, legal — prioritised over a general kanji syllabus.
What the training looks like
Rehearsal for the meeting you have next week.
Selected network first, matching within it second. The tutors were interviewed and accepted into our network long before your enquiry arrived; what happens after the brief is design, selection and oversight — not recruitment.
Protocol rehearsed, not described
Learners practise the introduction, the client visit, the apology email and the progress update as they will actually occur, with the tutor correcting register as closely as grammar.
Rehearsal, not lecture
Most of the hour is the learner speaking Japanese under realistic pressure — a simulated negotiation, a hostile question, a two-minute update — with the tutor correcting what actually undermines them.
Mixed levels handled honestly
Where a team spans several levels, we assess individually and stream the group. Nobody is held back and nobody is drowning; the syllabus and vocabulary stay shared so the team still speaks a common professional language.
Scheduling that survives the diary
Early mornings, evenings, split sessions, remote weeks. Programmes are bought in monthly blocks rather than fixed slots so business travel does not break the rhythm.
How it is run
From scoping call to week-six review.
Scoping call
Twenty minutes with Maria: who is learning, what they have to be able to do in Japanese, by when, and who signs the training off.
Level assessment
Every learner is assessed individually — speaking as well as grammar — so a mixed-ability team is grouped honestly rather than averaged into one useless class.
Written objectives and proposal
You receive objectives written as tasks, a recommended format, a schedule and a price. Nothing starts until the business has signed that off.
Specialist selection
We select from tutors already interviewed into our Japanese network — by sector as much as by language — and you meet them before anything is committed.
Delivery around the working week
Weekly sessions online, at your offices or at ours in London, early mornings and evenings included, with a rescheduling policy that assumes business travel exists.
Reporting and the week-six review
Monthly written progress reports against the agreed objectives, attendance visible, and a founder-led review at week six to adjust pace, objectives or tutor.
Formats and investment
Three ways to structure your programme.
Companies buy corporate training in three different shapes, so we price it in three different ways. Executive programmes start at £120/hr per learner, bought in hours; open business terms start at £950 per person for ten weeks; a closed team programme is quoted in full after the scoping call, once the number of learners, the spread of levels and the frequency are clear. All figures include VAT.
Executive one-to-one
One person, one objective, complete flexibility.
A bespoke Japanese programme for a single executive or specialist, built around the meetings, documents and clients that person actually deals with.
- Objectives agreed in writing before the first session
- Material drawn from your own documents and meetings
- Online, at your offices or at ours in London
- Monthly written reporting to the budget holder
From £120/hr
Bought in hours, per learner, VAT included: 4 hours at £120/hr (£480) month to month, down to £102/hr on 48 hours used within up to 12 months (£4,896).
Closed in-company group
One team, one syllabus, one invoice.
A group from the same organisation taught together in Japanese, streamed by level so nobody is held back or left behind.
- Levels assessed individually, then grouped honestly
- Sector vocabulary shared across the whole team
- Consolidated reporting across locations
- Suits teams of three and upwards
Quoted
Calculated on group size, the spread of levels, frequency and whether you want us on site — quoted in full after the scoping call.
Open business group term
A ten-week term at a shared price.
Live small-group business Japanese, for companies sending one or two people, or professionals who prefer to learn alongside others.
- Ten-week terms, maximum six people
- Professional syllabus, not a general course
- Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, London and online
- Invoiced to the company on request
From £950
Per person for a ten-week term, including VAT. A1–A2 £950, B1–B2 £1,050, C1–C2 £1,150. Maximum six people.
All figures include VAT. We invoice companies directly, work to purchase orders, and can provide the documentation, insurance and safeguarding information procurement teams ask for.
The evidence
Delivered inside law firms, hedge funds, publishing houses and global groups.
From our corporate clients
Our corporate training record.
A filmed client testimonial from our corporate training work, alongside verified reviews from professionals and companies across our languages — evidence of how we work, not all of it specific to business Japanese.
“As English isn’t my native language, I’ve always tried to improve my skills by taking different courses, whether group sessions or one-to-one. Working with Marianne and Learn&Co has been, without a doubt, my best experience. Marianne is an…”
“I started taking lessons with Maria about six months ago in order to try and get my rusty French to a good enough level that I could use it professionally in my work as a lawyer. I cannot recommend her highly enough. Her enthusiasm and…”
“We came across Learn&Co thanks to a recommendation from a friend at Hyperion Insurance Group. He was so happy with their corporate language training that we decided to contact them and set up a trial lesson. It’s now been over 6 months…”
“I have been taking classes to improve my French and Spanish with Learn&Co for the past year and I have to say I’m loving it. I’m impressed with the quality and structure of the lessons. I feel like I’m making great progress. A few months…”
“Could not recommend more highly — a wonderful tutor. I have been tutored by Maria through work for a year and it has been a fantastic experience. The lessons are well structured (split between grammar, presentation, conversation, question…”
“I started French tutoring with Maria about 4 months ago and it has been incredibly beneficial. I work for a large financial corporation and I wanted to increase our business presence in the French speaking countries in North Africa. Maria…”
“I was looking for a mix of help with social chat in french, developing my professional french and rebooting my grammar and written french that had suffered from years of underuse. Maria is funny, engaging and highly skilful as a teacher.…”
Questions
Before you brief us.
- Does our team need to learn kanji?
- For most corporate programmes, selectively. Speaking, listening and register come first; reading is prioritised around the documents and systems your people genuinely have to handle, which is far narrower than a general kanji syllabus.
- How much of the training is culture rather than language?
- They are not separable in Japanese. Keigo, introductions, indirect refusal and consensus-building are linguistic skills with commercial consequences, so they are trained as language, with rehearsal, not delivered as a cultural briefing.
- Can you prepare staff for the JLPT?
- Yes, subject to specialist availability. Where a role or a relocation requires a certified level we prepare for JLPT N5 to N1 against the examination date, alongside the professional programme.
- What does Business Japanese training cost?
- Bespoke Business Japanese programmes are bought in hours: 4 hours at £120/hr (£480) month to month, down to £102/hr on 48 hours used within up to 12 months (£4,896), VAT included, and are quoted in full after the scoping call, once learners, objectives and frequency are agreed. Open business group terms start at £950 per person for a ten-week term (A1–A2 £950, B1–B2 £1,050, C1–C2 £1,150). We invoice companies directly and work to purchase orders.
- Our team is at very different levels. Does that ruin a group programme?
- No, provided it is handled at the start. Every learner is assessed individually before the programme is designed, and a mixed team is streamed into two or three groups with a shared syllabus and shared vocabulary. We will tell you honestly when a group is the wrong purchase.
- Do you deliver in person, or only online?
- Both. We teach at your offices in London, at ours, and online for teams split across offices or time zones. Most corporate programmes end up mixed, and the format can change mid-programme without renegotiating anything.
- How do we prove it is working?
- Objectives are written as tasks at the start — run the weekly call unaided, answer client correspondence without help, present the quarterly update on site. You receive monthly written reports and a founder-led review at week six, with CEFR benchmarking where a formal level is required.
- Who are the tutors?
- Japanese specialists already interviewed and accepted into our network long before your enquiry arrives, with genuine professional and sector experience. The match is made within that network against your brief and your sector, with Maria overseeing it, and you meet the tutor before anything is committed.
- Can you run programmes in several languages at once?
- Yes. We deliver in nine languages with a single point of contact and consolidated reporting, so a company training three teams manages one relationship rather than three suppliers.
- What if the tutor is not right for the learner?
- We rematch, at no cost. The chemistry call before the programme starts and the week-six review exist precisely so that is a small correction rather than a wasted budget.
Other ways to learn Japanese
Not a corporate programme? There is another route.
- Corporate language training across all nine languages.
- Every route into Japanese with Learn&Co, in one place.
- One-to-one tuition paid for privately rather than by a company.
- Small ten-week terms in our published languages, London and online.
- Certification prepared against the examination date, subject to availability.
Ready to brief us?
Twenty minutes with Maria.
Tell Maria who is learning, what they must be able to do in Japanese and by when. She will tell you how we would approach it, which specialist she would match them with, and what it would cost.
Maria Toubbe
- 20 minutes
- A conversation, not a sales call.
- With Maria
- Our founder, every time — not a call centre.
- No obligation
- Advice you can use even if you never book.
20 min · video call · free
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