French Language

French is a universal language of art, culture, and business. Spoken on five continents, no other language besides English is as truly global as French. Here are some facts to consider about the French language:

Over 200 million people speak French as either a first or second language.
French is an official language of 29 countries, as well as the United Nations, NATO, OECD, the European Community, the International Red Cross and many other international organizations.
French companies employ approximately 500,000 Americans.
US companies employ nearly 600,000 people in France.

While French may be one of the most popular foreign languages to study in the United States, it poses some unique challenges for any translator. When you want to know “What?” do you ask que, quoi, or quel? What difference does it make if voile is masculine or feminine? And don’t be scared by a formidable prospect; it is literally a “great” opportunity!

Here are some pointers to guide you when first considering a French translation job:

French Language Characteristics

Like Spanish and Italian, French is a Romance language derived from Latin. So what are some of the distinctive features of the French language?

French is written using the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, plus five diacritical (accent) marks (the circumflex accent, acute accent, grave accent, diaeresis, and cedilla) and the two ligatures (œ and æ).
Le (masculine form of the) is used with masculine words and La (feminine form of the) is used with feminine words. However, l’ is used with either gender if the word begins with a vowel.
French words are notorious for being pronounced and spelled differently. This is because of the large number of silent letters.
Politeness and deference is expressed by using the formal word vous for “you,” instead of the informal tu.
Laws in France ban the use of non-French words in official publications and websites. Official agencies introduce the French equivalents for new technological terms by, including un courier électronique for “e-mail” and un clavier for “keyboard.”

French Dialects

Because French is so widespread distinctive dialects were developed in many different countries. Even within France itself there are many regional varieties of French, although these have been largely marginalized. While the pronunciation of French can vary widely, written French is more standardized. Any translation agency ought to be able to translate into both Standard French and Quebec French.

Standard French:

Based on the dialect of Paris, this has been the official language of France since the sixteenth century. Its purity is upheld by the L'Académie française. All other dialects are compared to this dominant form, and translations in standard French will be understood by the vast majority of those who read French.

Quebec French:

This is the predominant form of French used in Canada with nearly seven million speakers. French is one of the two official languages of Canada and the Federal Government operates in both French and English. The greatest distinction between Quebec French and Standard French comes from vocabulary, but there are also some grammatical, punctuation and spelling differences. Quebec French should be used to localize products for Canada.

French Market

Although much has been made of fast-growing economies in the developing world, France remains one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Here are some facts to consider:

The gross domestic product (GDP) of France is nearly $3 trillion, making it the eighth largest economy in the world.
Per capita GDP in France is almost $33,000.
More tourists visit France than any other country in the world.
France is the second largest exporter of agricultural goods after the United States and the fifth largest exporting nation overall.

English into French Text Expansion

Generally, documents translated from English into French require about 15-20% more words. This is due to the linguistic features of the language. Oftentimes, more words are necessary to say the same thing in French than in English.

Text expansion can create difficulties in document formatting and desktop publishing (DTP). It may result in a document that is crowded and hard-to-read as more words are forced to fit into the same design. Any documents intended for translation into French should include enough text space to accommodate expansion. Website translation can also be facilitated by a design that allows for flexibility in dealing with text expansion.