Business Mandarin training
Mandarin that holds up in the negotiation, not just the greeting.
Corporate Mandarin training for teams working with Chinese clients, suppliers and joint-venture partners. Tones under pressure, titles and hierarchy, negotiation language and the written conventions of WeChat and email — trained against your own accounts rather than a textbook company.
Why companies buy this
Three polite sentences of Mandarin buy goodwill. They do not buy the deal.
The interpreter can translate the offer. They cannot build the relationship that decides whether it is accepted.
Most executives with China exposure have a handful of phrases and an interpreter. The phrases open the relationship warmly, and then everything commercially significant is handed to someone else — including the part where tone, hesitation and hierarchy are doing the negotiating.
The other failure is technical. Tones that survive a classroom collapse under pressure, so a rehearsed sentence lands as something else entirely in a fast meeting, and the learner quietly stops speaking.
Training therefore concentrates on production under pressure, on the vocabulary of your actual deal, and on the parts of a Chinese business relationship — introductions, titles, hospitality, indirect refusal — where language and commercial outcome are the same thing.
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 Mandarin?
Executives with Chinese partners or investors
Leaders in joint ventures, investment relationships and long-cycle partnerships who want to hold the relationship personally rather than through an intermediary.
Procurement and supply-chain teams
Daily contact with Chinese manufacturers and logistics partners: specifications, quality issues, lead times and escalation, in writing and on fast calls.
Sales and business development
Teams selling into mainland China and Greater China who need introductions, pitch language, hospitality and follow-up that works on WeChat as well as in email.
Finance, legal and advisory teams
Advisers on China mandates needing terminology, correspondence conventions and enough comprehension to follow what is said around the formal translation.
What we actually train
The business Mandarin that decides outcomes.
Tones that survive pressure
Systematic tone production and correction in real speech — the single difference between Mandarin that is understood in a fast meeting and Mandarin that is politely ignored.
Titles, seniority and introductions
Addressing people by role, ordering introductions correctly, exchanging cards, and signalling respect for hierarchy without sounding servile.
Relationship and hospitality language
Dinners, toasts, gifts and the informal conversation where trust is established — trained as commercial skill because that is where much of the negotiation happens.
Negotiation and indirect refusal
Price, terms and conditions stated clearly, plus recognising the polite forms that mean no, not yet, or ask someone more senior.
Written Chinese for business use
WeChat conventions, email register, and the characters your team genuinely needs to read — contracts, specifications, product listings — rather than a general reading syllabus.
Sector vocabulary
Manufacturing, trade, finance or technology terminology taken from your own documents, so learners can discuss the actual account.
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.
Speaking time, corrected closely
Sessions prioritise production: pitching, negotiating and handling questions in Mandarin, with tone and phrasing corrected in the moment rather than at the end of a unit.
Rehearsal, not lecture
Most of the hour is the learner speaking Mandarin 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 Mandarin, 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 Mandarin 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 Mandarin 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 Mandarin, 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 Mandarin, 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 Mandarin.
“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.
- Is Mandarin realistic for busy executives?
- With a narrow objective, yes. We do not promise general fluency in a year; we build a defined working capability — introductions, meetings on your specific subject, hospitality, negotiation phrases — and report against it. Breadth comes later if the business wants it.
- Do learners need to read and write characters?
- Selectively. Spoken competence and pinyin come first, then the specific characters your team must read in contracts, specifications and WeChat. We do not impose a general literacy syllabus on a commercial programme.
- Can you prepare staff for the HSK?
- Yes, subject to specialist availability. Where a role, a scholarship or a relocation requires a certified level, we prepare for HSK against the examination date.
- What does Business Mandarin training cost?
- Bespoke Business Mandarin 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?
- Mandarin 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 Mandarin
Not a corporate programme? There is another route.
- Corporate language training across all nine languages.
- Every route into Mandarin 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 Mandarin 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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