Learn Business Chinese Basic with Phoebe

The six sessions 🎯

The running case is Lumen Logistics, an invented Singapore freight company, 鲁门物流 (Lǔmén Wùliú, Lumen Logistics), opening a partnership with a Shanghai distributor. You are the person they send.

🔊 Session 1 · foundational

Sounds and tones

How a syllable is built, pinyin and its tone marks, the four tones as shapes, why 买 (mǎi, buy) and 卖 (mài, sell) must never be confused, and the three tone changes.

▶ Start here 🪪 Session 2 · foundational

Names, titles and business cards

Surname first, address by title, safe defaults when you do not know the title, and how a card is given and received with two hands.

🎛️ Session 3 · bench night

The tone trainer

A pitch tracker scores four synthetic voices five ways: raw hertz fails a lower voice, calibration rescues a level word, dictionary tones mark correct speech wrong. Then your own voice.

★ the bench 🔢 Session 4 · core

Numbers, money, dates and times

Counting in fours with 万 (wàn, ten thousand), prices, phone numbers, dates in Chinese order and meeting times.

💬 Session 5 · core

Meetings, calls and WeChat basics

Polite requests, booking and confirming a meeting, and WeChat as the everyday business channel.

🤝 Session 6 · capstone

The first meeting, and the follow-up

The first five minutes scripted, the numbers said and confirmed, the WeChat follow-up sent the same day. Final scorecard.

🔒 final scorecard

foundational core bench night capstone

Your passport 🎫

Clear all three quiz questions in a session and it gets stamped. Stamps live in this browser only.

What this is not, so you land in the right place 🧭

If your question is	Go here instead
I already speak everyday Chinese and need the business register, formal writing and negotiation	Business Chinese Advanced ↗
I want to present and influence in English	Communication ↗
I start from zero and need to get through a first business meeting in Chinese.	you are in the right place

Choose your path 🗺️

Three ways through the same six sessions.

🧳 I fly to Shanghai next month 1→2→6 sounds, titles and cards, the meeting script

🎧 My tones are the problem 1→3 the shapes, then the trainer on your own voice

🎯 The whole course 1→2→3→4→5→6 from the first syllable to a first meeting and its follow-up

What is honest here 🧾

Where a page rests on a standard, a paper or a guide, it says which and how it was read; where something is common practice rather than a documented rule, it says that instead.

Claim	Status
Every count on the tone trainer bench	Really computed in your browser by a YIN pitch tracker on four synthetic voices; the bench claims the ordering of the scoring methods, not an accuracy for real speech
The tone values 55, 35, 214, 51 and the third-tone change	Confirmed in a published phonology paper citing Chao
Where the tone mark goes	Read at source in the 1958 pinyin scheme and GB/T 16159-2012; the familiar "a or e first" rule is taught as a shortcut, not as their wording
Card exchange and address by title	Reported from university business-Chinese guides; 王总 (Wáng zǒng, President Wang) is widely heard and not documented in them
HSK levels	The 2021 standard (GF0025-2021) for scope; the HSK exam's new version officially launches on 13 December 2026, so check chinesetest.cn before booking
Lumen Logistics and its people	Invented for the running case

The knowledge map 🧠

The whole course at a glance - hover a session to spotlight its concepts, click any node to jump in.