Best Anki Decks for Business Chinese (BCT and Work Vocabulary)

There are far fewer business Chinese decks on AnkiWeb than HSK decks. When we searched in October 2026, we found only a handful made for business or workplace Chinese, and no ready-made deck for the Business Chinese Test (BCT). The ones that exist are usable, though, and a free tool can build a BCT word deck for you in minutes.

Below are those decks, what the BCT tests, 35 core words and 10 example sentences, and how to turn your own work emails into cards. For general decks, see our list of the best Chinese Anki decks.

Business Chinese Anki Decks Worth Downloading

We downloaded each of these and counted its notes and cards. We haven't tested them in Mandarin Mosaic, so if you want to use one there, check the importer's preview first (see below).

1. Gateway to Business Chinese

Gateway to Business Chinese has 697 words from Parts 1 and 2 of the Gateway to Business Chinese textbooks (Peking University Press), in Simplified characters. Each note has the characters, tone-marked pinyin, English, the part of speech and the chapter, with three card types per note: 2,091 cards in all. There's no audio and there are no example sentences. It was last updated in February 2022.

The course is for business people starting from zero, so much of the deck is everyday vocabulary (什么, shénme, what) mixed with work words such as 汇价 (huìjià, exchange rate). It suits beginners; intermediate learners will know most of it.

2. 各行各業說中文 1 (Advanced Business Chinese)

各行各業說中文1 (Advanced Business Chinese) covers the vocabulary of volume 1 of Advanced Business Chinese, a textbook from National Taiwan Normal University's Mandarin Training Center. It has 807 notes (one card each) in Traditional characters, with pinyin, part of speech and English on the back. The audio fields are empty. It was last updated in July 2025.

This is the most advanced deck here: 離職 (lízhí, to resign), 財務 (cáiwù, finances) and idioms such as 好聚好散 (hǎojù-hǎosàn, to part on good terms). It's a good fit if you work with Taiwanese colleagues or study the textbook. A few entries have capitalised pinyin, a sign it was typed up by hand.

3. Business Chinese (a small mixed deck)

Business Chinese is a small Simplified deck of 198 notes: 176 English-to-Chinese word cards (about 40% with pinyin) and 22 cloze sentences such as 在股票市场上，投资者追求高收益 (zài gǔpiào shìchǎng shang, tóuzīzhě zhuīqiú gāo shōuyì, in the stock market, investors look for high returns). It leans towards tech and finance, with words like 用户体验 (yònghù tǐyàn, user experience). There's no audio. It was last updated in January 2025. Treat it as someone's personal deck rather than a course: useful if you work in tech, and a good example of what a mined business deck looks like.

4. Build a BCT Word Deck with Anki xiě hànzì

The open-source Anki xiě hànzì project has a free Create tool that generates an Anki deck in your browser. One of its word sources is BCT Level: BCT A (about 600 words) or BCT B (about 4,000 words). You choose the fields, including Simplified or Traditional, pinyin, meanings, audio (recorded HSK audio or text-to-speech) and optional example sentences, then download an .apkg file. It's the closest thing to a BCT Anki deck we found, and you can delete words you already know before exporting.

The Decks at a Glance

None of the shared decks has audio, and only the small one has sentences. That's normal for textbook decks, and it's why building your own sentence cards (below) matters more than the list.

What Is the BCT (Business Chinese Test)?

The BCT (商务汉语考试, shāngwù hànyǔ kǎoshì) tests how well non-native speakers use Chinese at work. It's run by Chinese Testing International (CTI), the same organisation that runs the HSK, and CTI's English pages now call it the Chinese Proficiency Test (Business). At the time of writing it has three parts, each taken separately:

• BCT (A), aimed at beginners: 70 questions on listening, reading and writing, about 70 minutes, scored out of 300.
• BCT (B), for intermediate and advanced learners: 92 questions on listening, reading and writing, 145 minutes, also scored out of 300.
• BCT Speaking: an internet-based test of 15 questions in five sections, taking about 25 minutes including setup.

CTI lists paper-based, test-centre and at-home internet versions on its BCT page; check which ones your local test centre offers.

CTI's pages don't give a word count for each level. The University of Luxembourg's Confucius Institute gives 600 words for BCT (A) and over 5,000 for BCT (B); the Create tool's lists have about 600 and about 4,000.

How the BCT Relates to the HSK

The two are separate exams from the same organisation. The HSK tests general Chinese; the BCT tests the same skills in work situations such as meetings, phone calls, emails and business travel. We couldn't find an official conversion between BCT scores and HSK levels, so don't assume one. Most learners don't need either certificate. If an employer or university asks for one, it's more likely to be the HSK, which our post on whether you should take the HSK tests covers in detail.

35 Business Chinese Words to Learn First

If you'd rather start with a short list than a 700-word deck, these words come up again and again in offices, emails and meetings.

Two of these are worth a note. 请多关照 literally means "please look after me a lot", and you'll hear it when people are introduced, often while handing over a business card with both hands. Our post on asking someone's name in Chinese walks through a formal business introduction. 辛苦了 is what you say to a colleague who has just finished a long task or come back from a trip.

Business Chinese Example Sentences

Words stick far better in sentences. These ten use the list above in the way you'd meet them at work.

1. 我们明天上午十点开会。
   wǒmen míngtiān shàngwǔ shí diǎn kāihuì.
   We have a meeting at ten tomorrow morning.
2. 会议推迟到下周三了。
   huìyì tuīchí dào xià zhōusān le.
   The meeting has been moved to next Wednesday.
3. 附件是我们的最新报价，请查收。
   fùjiàn shì wǒmen de zuìxīn bàojià, qǐng cháshōu.
   Please find our latest quotation attached.
4. 收到邮件后请尽快回复。
   shōudào yóujiàn hòu qǐng jǐnkuài huífù.
   Please reply as soon as possible when you receive this email.
5. 这个价格我们不太能接受，能不能再给一点折扣？
   zhège jiàgé wǒmen bú tài néng jiēshòu, néng bu néng zài gěi yìdiǎn zhékòu?
   We can't really accept this price. Could you give us a little more discount?
6. 我下周要去上海出差。
   wǒ xià zhōu yào qù shànghǎi chūchāi.
   I'm going to Shanghai on a business trip next week.
7. 今年的预算不够，我们得降低成本。
   jīnnián de yùsuàn bú gòu, wǒmen děi jiàngdī chéngběn.
   This year's budget isn't enough, so we need to cut costs.
8. 合同已经签好了，发票下个月寄给您。
   hétong yǐjīng qiānhǎo le, fāpiào xià ge yuè jì gěi nín.
   The contract is signed, and we'll send you the invoice next month.
9. 希望我们以后有更多合作的机会。
   xīwàng wǒmen yǐhòu yǒu gèng duō hézuò de jīhuì.
   We hope there will be more chances to work together in future.
10. 这是我的名片，请多关照。
    zhè shì wǒ de míngpiàn, qǐng duō guānzhào.
    Here's my card. I look forward to working with you.

Notice the tone changes: 不 becomes bú before a fourth tone (不太, bú tài; 不够, bú gòu), and 一 becomes yì before a third tone (一点, yìdiǎn). 请查收 (qǐng cháshōu, "please check and receive") is a set phrase you'll see at the end of countless emails with attachments.

How to Make a General Deck Work for Business Chinese

Most business vocabulary sits on top of ordinary Chinese, so a good general deck plus a business layer beats a business deck alone. To adapt what you have:

• Suspend what you don't need. Textbook decks follow the book, not your job. Skip irrelevant chapters and suspend words you know.
• Tag by topic. Add tags such as meetings, email or finance, then use a filtered deck to drill one topic before a meeting.
• Add a sentence field. A word list tells you what 推迟 means, but not that it usually comes with 到 and a new date. Add one real sentence to each card you care about.
• Keep the deck small. A few hundred words you use every week beat 4,000 you'll rarely meet. Anki's daily reviews pile up quickly, which is one of the reasons Anki feels hard for Chinese.

Build Your Own Deck From Real Work Chinese

The best business deck is the one made from your own working life, because every card is something you've actually needed. This is sentence mining: when you meet a sentence you almost understand, with one new word in it, you save the whole sentence.

1. Collect as you go. Copy sentences from emails, WeChat messages and meeting notes into a note on your phone.
2. Keep one new word per sentence. A sentence with three new words is hard to remember, so find a simpler one.
3. Check the translation with a colleague or a dictionary. Work Chinese is full of set phrases that don't translate word for word.
4. Remove anything confidential before you put it in a shared tool or a flashcard app.

Using These Decks in Mandarin Mosaic

Mandarin Mosaic can import an Anki deck (.apkg), a CSV file or a text file as a custom pack; our Anki import guide walks through it step by step. Each imported sentence gets audio, and lessons pick the sentences with the fewest new words for you.

The importer is built for sentences, and most of the decks above are word lists. Before importing one, check the preview of the first 25 rows and make sure the Chinese and English columns are right. You'll usually get more from the sentences you mine yourself: keep them in a spreadsheet, Chinese in one column and English in the next, and import it as CSV.

At the time of writing, the free plan allows one custom pack and 10 custom sentences, and Premium removes both limits, so it's the practical choice for a full deck. There's a 30-day free trial; see pricing for current details.

Don't Forget to Practise Speaking

Much of business Chinese is spoken: meetings, phone calls, small talk over dinner. Flashcards help you recognise 谈判 when you hear it, but they don't train you to produce a sentence at speaking speed. The Chunking Chinese fluency trainer is built for that step. It gives you a prompt in English, you say the Chinese out loud, and it scores each character for tone and pronunciation. Its content covers HSK 1 to 5 everyday Chinese rather than business topics, but the reusable phrases it drills, such as 我想问一下 (wǒ xiǎng wèn yíxià, I'd like to ask…), are just as useful in a meeting as in a shop.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is There an Anki Deck for the BCT?

Not a ready-made shared one that we could find on AnkiWeb at the time of writing. The quickest route is the Anki xiě hànzì Create tool, which builds a deck from the BCT A (about 600 words) or BCT B (about 4,000 words) list with pinyin, meanings and audio. CTI's BCT pages also have a mock test, so you can see how the words are tested.

How Many Words Do I Need for Business Chinese?

It depends on what you need to do. The BCT (A) word list, aimed at basic work tasks, is usually given as about 600 words; figures for BCT (B), for complex business situations, range from about 4,000 to over 5,000 depending on the source. For a sense of how vocabulary size relates to fluency in general, see our Mandarin vocabulary roadmap.

Is HSK Vocabulary Enough for Business Chinese?

It's a solid base. Most of the words in business Chinese are ordinary words, and many on the list above, such as 安排, 联系 and 经理, also appear in HSK word lists. What HSK study won't give you is the set phrases of email and negotiation, or your industry's terms. Add those from a business deck or, better, from your own work.

Should I Learn Simplified or Traditional Characters for Business?

Learn the set your colleagues use. Mainland China and Singapore use Simplified; Taiwan and Hong Kong use Traditional. Of the decks above, 各行各業說中文 is in Traditional and the others are Simplified, and the Create tool can make either.

Want to learn business vocabulary inside real sentences? Mandarin Mosaic turns your own sentences, or an imported deck, into lessons with one new word at a time, audio, and reviews scheduled for you. It's free to try on iOS and Android.

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