Shiken for Business · Language Learning
Language learning for every employee
Give your team AI-powered Business English and 30+ career-growth languages — with the admin dashboards, SSO and custom vocabulary L&D teams need.
No credit card required · 25 seats included in trial · 30+ languages
Language Learning Dashboard
Live overview · EMEA team
412
Active learners
B2
Avg CEFR level
38d
Avg streak
Top languages (this month)
Trusted by 30k+ people from top universities & businesses across the world
Why companies invest in language learning
Connection, career growth & real ROI
The best companies treat language as an unlock — for inclusion, promotions and customer outcomes. Shiken makes it scalable for teams of 50 or 50,000.
Career growth
Turn language into promotions
Employees who learn the language of their customers, colleagues and industry get promoted faster. Shiken lets every worker — from frontline staff to engineers — practise on their phone in 5-minute bursts.
- Business English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese & 30+ more
- Industry-specific vocabulary (sales, healthcare, hospitality, engineering)
- AI roleplay for interviews, pitches and performance reviews
Inclusion & belonging
Help every team member be understood
In multilingual teams, communication is the difference between inclusion and isolation. Give non-native English speakers the confidence to lead meetings — and give their teammates the tools to meet them halfway.
- ESL courses for customer-facing and frontline employees
- Managers learn basic phrases in their team's first languages
- Two-way language exchange built into ERG programmes
Retention & ROI
A benefit employees actually use
Language learning has one of the highest engagement rates of any employee benefit. Teams using Shiken report longer tenure, stronger customer NPS and measurable upskilling across multilingual customer bases.
- 82% of employees activate Shiken in the first 30 days
- 4.8/5 average learner rating across enterprise deployments
- Roll-up dashboards for HR, L&D and DE&I leaders
Built for two audiences
English for non-native speakers. And any language for career growth.
One platform covers both — so you don't need a separate ESL vendor and a separate Duolingo subscription.
English for your global workforce
A complete English programme for non-native speakers — from dishwasher to executive. CEFR-aligned levels, industry vocabulary and AI pronunciation coaching in every lesson.
- CEFR A1–C2 placement and progression
- Business English: meetings, email, presentations, sales
- Pronunciation coach with real-time phoneme feedback
- Accent-aware — trained on 40+ English accents
Let your team learn any language
Unlock a second, third or fourth language for employees who work with international customers, partners or colleagues. Shiken supports 30+ languages with the same AI roleplay and spaced repetition engine.
- Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Mandarin
- Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi, Dutch, Polish & more
- Custom vocabulary lists from your company glossary
- AI roleplays for client calls, trade shows and negotiations
82%
30-day activation rate
5x
Faster vocabulary retention vs. classroom
7 min
Average daily session length
30+
Languages supported
Platform capabilities
Everything you need to run language learning at scale
All the AI, all the gamification, all the admin controls — in one platform designed for L&D, HR and DE&I leaders.
AI conversation practice
Unlimited speaking practice with a lifelike AI tutor. Practise customer calls, interviews and team stand-ups — with instant feedback on grammar, pronunciation and word choice.
Business vocabulary, built in
Pre-built Business English courses plus AI-generated vocabulary from your own SOPs, safety manuals and customer scripts. Every learner studies the exact words they use at work.
Spaced repetition that works
Our scientifically-backed spaced repetition engine ensures vocabulary sticks. Learners review at optimal intervals — no cramming, no forgetting.
Gamified streaks & leaderboards
The engagement that made Duolingo famous, built for teams. Streaks, XP, buddies and team-vs-team challenges drive daily practice habits.
Pronunciation coach
Real-time phoneme-level feedback on every sentence. Learners see exactly which sounds to improve — perfect for customer-facing roles.
Skill-gap analytics
L&D dashboards roll up CEFR progression, active learners, streaks and accuracy by team, location and cohort. Prove impact to your CFO.
Slack & Teams delivery
Daily micro-lessons delivered in Slack or Microsoft Teams. No separate portal to log into — learners practise where they already work.
Cohorts, assignments & compliance
Assign mandatory Business English modules, set deadlines, and track completion for customer-facing compliance — same as any other L&D programme.
Enterprise security
SSO/SAML, SCIM provisioning, org-wide opt-out of AI training, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. Built for regulated industries.
For every industry
Where language learning unlocks the most value
From restaurants to hospitals to global sales teams — Shiken is deployed wherever multilingual teams serve multilingual customers.
Hospitality & restaurants
Front-of-house and back-of-house teams learn each other's languages. Servers handle guest requests in Spanish; line cooks get the English they need for promotion.
Healthcare & clinical
Nurses, carers and technicians learn patient-facing English or Spanish. Compliant with medical terminology and patient-consent conversations.
Retail & grocery
Cashiers, department leads and pharmacists serve customers in the language of their community — building loyalty and inclusion at store level.
Manufacturing & logistics
Line operators, drivers and warehouse teams learn the vocabulary for safety briefings, SOPs and cross-shift handovers.
Sales & customer success
Reps practise discovery calls, objection handling and negotiations in their customers' languages — with AI roleplays built from real meeting transcripts.
Public sector & NGOs
City services, paramedics and frontline government staff learn the languages of the communities they serve — equitable, scalable and mobile-first.
Coach from real meetings
Turn every customer call into a language lesson
No other language platform does this. Shiken records your team's real customer calls (with consent), detects pronunciation, fluency and vocabulary gaps per speaker — then auto-generates personalised Business English drills to close them.
- Per-speaker pronunciation and fluency scoring on real calls
- Auto-generated roleplays from missed objections
- Vocabulary drills from unfamiliar words your reps heard
- Skill-gap reports by language, team and region
Live coaching feedback
Call detected
EMEA rep · Pronunciation score 62% on /θ/ and /ð/
Auto-generated drill
5-min roleplay: “Handling objections about thirty-three pricing tiers”
Impact (14 days)
Pronunciation score +19% · Customer NPS +8
Comparison
Shiken vs. the rest of the market
We benchmarked ourselves against the top business language platforms. Here's how we compare on what L&D teams actually care about.
| Feature | Shiken | Duolingo for Business | Speak for Business | Preply Business | Busuu for Business |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI conversation practice | — | — | — | ||
| Custom vocabulary from company docs | — | — | — | — | |
| Business English built in | |||||
| Gamification & streaks | — | — | |||
| Spaced repetition | — | — | |||
| Roleplay for work scenarios | — | — | |||
| Slack / Teams delivery | — | — | — | — | |
| L&D admin dashboard | |||||
| SSO / SAML / SCIM | |||||
| Create your own courses | — | — | — | — | |
| Meeting recorder + coaching | — | — | — | — |
Testimonials
Loved by HR, L&D and DE&I teams
4.8/5 average learner rating
“Within seven months one of our team members went from dishwasher to line cook. The confidence they got from practising English on Shiken every day is life-changing.”
Scott R.
Director of HR & Payroll, Multi-location restaurant group
“We rolled Shiken out to our EMEA sales team in two weeks. The AI roleplays in Spanish and German have closed the language gap our reps felt on customer calls.”
Claudia M.
VP Sales Enablement, Global SaaS company
“Duolingo got our team started, but we needed vocabulary from our safety manuals, not a farm. Shiken let us upload our SOPs and generate a Business English course overnight.”
David W.
Head of L&D, Manufacturing enterprise
Admin & security
Enterprise-grade controls for L&D teams
Shiken meets the security and admin bar that HR and L&D leaders in regulated industries demand — so rolling out language learning to 10,000 people is as easy as rolling it out to 10.
See our security page- SSO / SAML (Okta, Azure AD, Google)
- SCIM user provisioning
- Role-based access control
- Org-wide AI training opt-out
- Data residency options
- SOC 2 Type II & ISO 27001
- GDPR / CCPA compliant
- API + data warehouse sync
FAQ
Language learning for business, answered
How is Shiken different from Duolingo for Business?
How does Shiken compare to Speak for Business?
Is Shiken a replacement for Preply Business or live tutors?
Does Shiken support Business English specifically?
Which languages are supported?
How do employees access Shiken?
How do we measure ROI?
Is Shiken secure and compliant?
Give every employee a language tutor
Career growth, inclusion and measurable ROI — all in one platform. Join hundreds of HR, L&D and DE&I teams running Shiken at scale.
No credit card required · 25 seats included · Cancel anytime