French Language

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French Translation

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• To: Select Language > English Albanian Arabic Bengali Bulgarian Burmese Chinese (simp.) Chinese (trad.) Croatian Czech Danish Dari Dutch Estonian Farsi Finnish French French Can. German Greek Gujarati Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Kannada Khmer Korean Kurdish Laotion Latvian Lithuanian Malay Malayalam Marathi Ndebele Nepalese Norwegian Oriya Pedi Polish Portuguese Portuguese (Braz.) Punjabi Pushto Rumanian Russian Serbian Shangane Shona Singhalese Slovak Slovenian Somali Sotho Spanish Spanish (Arg.) Spanish (Mex.) Spanish (Ur.) Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Tswang Turkish Twi Ukrainian Urdu Venda Vietnamese Xhosa Yiddish Yoruba
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French Translation sample:

Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

French Speaking countries

Belgium, Benin, Burkino Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Miquelon, Monaco, Morroco, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saint Barthelemy, St. Martin, Saint-Pierre, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo.

Business French phrases

• Basics
• Time
• Telephone
• Food

Business Etiquette

Courtesy and a degree of formality are the most important aspects.

• Meeting

Handshake is not too firm/aggressive and often a light grip with a single, quick shake.

Dress is often fashionable, whether formal or casual and they expect and are comfortable amongst those equally dressed.

Meetings are often to discuss issues, not to make decisions

• Eating

Arrive on time. Do not arrive 10 minutes late without phoning beforehand.

Do not begin eating until the hostess says 'bon appetit'. (dinner parties)

If you have not finished eating, cross your knife and fork on your plate with the fork over the knife.

Do not rest your elbows on the table, although your hands should be visible and not in your lap. A man may rest his wrists, and a woman her forearms, on the table edge.

Do not cut salad with a knife and fork. Fold the lettuce on to your fork.

Peel and slice fruit before eating it, break bread before eating.

• Negotiation

Do not be over friendly, the French seperate their business from their personal lives.

High-pressure sales tactics should be avoided. The French are more receptive to a low-key, logical presentation that explains the advantages of a proposal in full.

The French are often impressed with good debating skills that demonstrate an intellectual grasp of the situation and all the ramifications.

French language learning links

www.onlinelearners.net

Online classes in French and French homestay language learning programme.

Online classes given by a qualified and experienced native speaker via skype. We also organize a comprehensive homestay language learning programme in the south of Paris.

French speaking countries:

Belgium, Benin, Burkino Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Haiti, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Miquelon, Monaco, Morroco, Niger, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saint Barthelemy, St. Martin, Saint-Pierre, Senegal, Seychelles, Switzerland, Togo.

French language and its variations (written form):

• Geographical Location: In Europe, French speakers live in France, Belgium, and Western Switzerland. French is also spoken in Canada, parts of the USA including Louisiana, and Maine, also in West Central Africa and Haiti.
• Dialects: There are 12 main French dialects (spoken).

Standard French

Standard French or 'Parisian' French is the main written form used everyday. It is the most common, especially in commerce due to France's importance as a trading power. Other written variations include Canadian French and African French.

If you are needing a translation, the probability is that you will need Standard French as this is used as the International variation in Commerce. Only on the occasion where your text or translation in the form of advertising or marketing is specifically for a given region/area outside France, eg: Quebec, Canada, would you use a local variation.

Standard French is used in other countries and regions, besides France:

• Corsica
• Monaco
• Western Switzerland
• Southern Belgium
• Luxembourg
• Andorra (one of three languages)

 

Swiss French

The map to the right shows the French speaking part of Switzerland (Western Switzerland). For more information on the languages spoken in Switzerland, click on the map

Written Standard French is used in Western Switzerland, with no diference, although when spoken there is a slight diference in dialect, which is only noticeable to French speakers.

Canadian French

Canadian French and Standard French differ little in the written form. It is dominant in Quebec where it is the dominant language (see map). Canadian French uses some verbs used in Standard French in 1700's as well as some anglicisms, a sign of the influence English has had. These differences are due to Quebec's isolation from France in terms of distance and commercial links since the 1700's. USA has always had strong commercial links.

 

African French

French, although the most widely spoken of any language in Africa, is normally a second language, with the dominant language being the national native language. Although some classes (middle-upper) in Tunisia, Algeria and Morroco speak it as a first language or are bilingual (French/Arabic).