Meeting with a foreign client, emailing a supplier in Asia, interviewing for a position at a multinational company: business English has its own vocabulary, tone, and established formulas that schools don't usually teach. That's why the category "business English" exists — and the Busuu It is one of the apps that offer content specifically for her.
In this text we explain what Busuu actually delivers, what's included in the free plan and what requires a subscription, and what exactly the "certificate" it offers means — a point where many people have the wrong expectations.
Where to download Busuu
The app is available in both official Brazilian app stores. On Google Play, it is listed as... Busuu: Learn languages; In the Brazilian App Store, Busuu Limited publishes it as “"Busuu: Learn languages"”. In any of them, the download is free — what costs money is full access.
Busuu: Learn languages
Android and iPhoneApp description: Free to install, with introductory lessons available. Full access to content — including the Business English course — depends on a Premium subscription.
Why learn business English?
Those who already speak reasonably good English often freeze up in specific work situations: disagreeing without sounding aggressive, asking for a deadline without seeming insecure, ending an email without sounding cold. These are conventions, not grammar — and they are learned through exposure to models, which is precisely what a corporate English course offers.
It's important to adjust expectations: no app can transform someone into a fluent speaker on its own. What it does well is provide routine, organized vocabulary, and listening and writing practice. Real conversation requires people on the other end.
What is Busuu?
O Busuu It's a language learning app with courses in 14 languages, including English. The company claims to have over 120 million users and is now a service of Chegg. On Google Play Brazil, it has a rating of 4.8, approximately 1.19 million reviews, and over 50 million downloads, with the Editor's Choice badge. It's also available on the Brazilian App Store under the name "Busuu: Learn Languages".
The app can be installed for free and offers free lessons, but the description in the store itself is straightforward about that: A subscription is required for full access to the content.. The business English course is among the supplementary courses available in the paid plan.
What does the business English course cover?
Busuu's Business English content is organized around the most frequent situations in the corporate environment:
- Office vocabulary: terms that appear everywhere, from "deadline" to "stakeholder".
- Professional writing: structure of emails, requests, responses and formal documents.
- PresentationsHow to open, conduct, and close a presentation in English.
- Meetings: expressions for agreeing, disagreeing politely, asking for clarification, and proposing a decision.
- NegotiationDiplomatic language, conditionals, and ways to soften a refusal.
- Telephone and video conferencingFormulas for asking for repetition, checking for understanding, and dealing with poor audio.
According to Busuu, the courses are organized according to the levels of CEFR, The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is the same A1 to C2 scale used by schools and international exams. This helps you know where you are and what you need to learn.
App features
Short lessons and smart review.
The lessons are short, with audio, images, and dialogues, and the app compiles the learned vocabulary in a review area. There's also a study plan with reminders and daily sequences, features designed to maintain consistency—which, in practice, is the factor that most determines the result.
Correction by the native speaker community.
This is Busuu's best-known feature: you write or record an exercise, and other users, native speakers of the language, correct it. In return, you correct exercises for those who are learning Portuguese.
An honest clarification: This correction is not in real time.. It relies on another user reviewing your text, which can take anywhere from minutes to a few days, depending on the language and time of day. The feedback is usually helpful, but don't rely on it to resolve an urgent email.
Offline mode and AI-powered conversations
Busuu lists offline mode and AI-powered conversations among the plan's features. Premium. Offline mode allows you to download lessons to study without an internet connection—useful when on the go—and AI conversations offer dialogue practice without relying on another person. Neither of these features is included in the free plan.
Regarding certificates: what they are and what they are not.
Busuu offers, in its paid plan, what are called... Busuu Certificates, described by the company itself as certificates of level completion. In other words, they certify that you have completed a certain level within the platform.
It's important to understand the scope of this. A certificate of completion issued by an application. It is not a proficiency exam. And it does not replace TOEFL, IELTS, Cambridge, or TOEIC — which are the certifications accepted by universities, immigration processes, and many companies to prove English proficiency.
This doesn't make the certificate useless: it serves as a record of your effort and can be included in the "free courses" section of your resume. Just don't present it as formal proof of proficiency, because that's not what it is. If your goal is a position that requires a proven level of proficiency, plan to take an official exam in parallel.
Who is Busuu suitable for?
- Professionals who already have some background knowledge and need the specific vocabulary of the job.
- Entrepreneurs who deal with foreign suppliers or clients via email and video call.
- Students who want to enter the job market with at least a basic level of business English training.
- Who studies in short blocks, during the commute or during a break, and it needs a format that fits within those few minutes.
Those starting from absolute zero might find a business course too early. In that case, the way to go is to first complete the introductory levels of a general English course—or start with a more playful app, as we showed in the guide about... Fun app for learning English.
Plans and values
The free plan gives you access to introductory lessons and allows you to familiarize yourself with the format. The plan Premium It unlocks full courses, extra courses (where the business content is located), offline mode, AI conversations, level certificates, and ad-free browsing.
We intentionally don't list prices here: prices change frequently, vary depending on the plan duration, and often include promotions. Check the current price on the app's page in the app store or on the official Busuu website before subscribing.
Remember to be careful with subscriptions as always: trial periods renew automatically. If you're going to try it, note the billing date and cancel through the store itself (Google Play or App Store) if you decide to stop—uninstalling the app doesn't cancel anything.
How to get the most out of the app
- Study every day, even if it's just a little. Twenty minutes a day is more than two hours on Saturday.
- Write properly in the open-ended exercises. and send it to the community for review. That's where the biggest gains lie.
- Correct other people's exercises. In addition to speeding up your return on investment, reviewing other people's Portuguese sharpens your perception of structure.
- Review the vocabulary weekly. in the review area, instead of just moving on to new lessons.
- Use English at work. Change your computer's language, read the documentation in English, write an internal email in English. The application prepares; use consolidates.
Conclusion
Busuu is one of the most solid options for studying English on your mobile phone: courses organized by CEFR levels, corrections by native speakers, and content specifically for the corporate environment. However, full access—including the business course—requires a subscription, and the certificate it issues is for level completion, not a proficiency exam.
Install it, do the free lessons for a few weeks and see if the routine sticks. If it does, then the subscription makes sense. And, whatever the app, what really moves the needle is consistency: a little each day, every day.
