Here’s the set-up: you work in your country’s branch of a French company or you do business on a regular basis with customers in France. You’ve been relying on machine translation to translate your emails for free for a while but feel that you sometimes miss the implication behind your correspondent’s words or that you’re losing your connection with them. You also worry that, because you’re using machine translation to communicate, you can’t be 100% certain that what they read is exactly what you want to say.
What’s the solution? You could hire a translator on a pro rata basis to translate your emails for you (that’s where Active Languages comes in) or you could book a French Writing & Grammar course at ACCORD Paris. The writing and grammar lessons at ACCORD Paris do exactly what they say on the tin: they help you improve your writing skills and understanding of grammar.
Let’s find out more about how it could take your career to the next level.
Grammar school
English business correspondence tends to be very relaxed with “hope you’re well” or “thanks for reaching out” common in our emails to and from clients. However, the French tend to use a formal tone and structure known as “soutenu”, which you won’t have learnt about at school and your machine translation certainly won’t know to use. “Soutenu” means you will be inverting questions (puis-je as opposed to est-ce que je peux) and relying heavily on the conditional and subjunctive tenses… yes, the dreaded subjunctive! Never fear though, the qualified and experienced teachers at Accord make these tricky tenses feel like child’s play and will give you plenty of opportunities to practise them.
There’s a big gap between written and spoken French and formal grammar structures are essential in French business emails: they can make the difference between securing customer loyalty and losing a customer completely. The grammar you choose to use when communicating with clients expresses what you want to say and how you want to convey meaning, whilst showing your respect for them.
Remember, the French use specific grammar and structured formulas in business to:
- show respect
- maintain professional boundaries
- acknowledge status and seniority
- protect credibility
- demonstrate cultural fluency
- maintain an objective tone
Vous vs Tu
Tu, the informal form of “you”, doesn’t really have a place in business, whereas vous establishes a polite buffer. You may get to the stage in your business relationship that you may be asked to tutoyer a colleague from a company you work with, but you should never use tu to address a client as it could be construed as a sign of disrespect.
You will get lots of practise using “vous” whilst in Paris. When you walk into school, the reception team at Accord Paris will ask “comment allez-vous?” and when you leave, they will say “passez une belle journée”. When you need help from your French teacher, you will ask “pouvez-vous m’aider s’il vous plaît?” and when you say “merci” to your waiter, they will answer “je vous en prie”. The immersive experience that Accord Paris provides will help vous and its conjugations come naturally to both your speaking and writing, until you don’t even have to think about it and it becomes a reflex.
Set the tone
We should mention some of the interesting vocabulary changes you will learn on your Writing & Grammar course at Accord Paris. That’s right, you don’t just have to consider the tenses and word order when it comes to formal language; you must take verbs into consideration too! Here are a few of the swaps that will become natural over the course of your time in Paris:
- Demander -» Solliciter
- Donner -» Octroyer or Accorder
- Faire face à -» Pallier
- Dire -» Indiquer or Exprimer
- Problème -» Désagrément
Why does it matter? The precise verbs you will learn at Accord Paris demonstrate your professionalism and tell your contact that you’re a person who understands the world of business. The French have their own traditional style of writing when it comes to business correspondence, and making the effort to “speak their language” shows that you are someone who goes the extra mile.
Bow to tradition
Written French, especially French business communication, has its own time-honoured traditions that simply cannot be ignored. Cover letters, CVs, B2B emails and more rely on strict templates and exceedingly polite (and long!) wording. Just take the classic sign-off:
Je vous prie d’agréer, Madame, Monsieur, l’expression de mes salutations distinguées.
What does it mean? Essentially, it just means “kind regards”. So why won’t a simple “cordialement” work on your email to your biggest client or a cover letter to a prospective employer? It just isn’t how it’s done. You can use “cordialement” with a colleague that you have regular correspondence with, but using the wrong wording or template with the wrong person highlights a lack of cultural understanding and fluency in the language… which is exactly what you want to avoid. The French Writing & Grammar course will teach you all the set templates and expressions that you need to know to pass for a native writer.
Communicate with confidence
The Writing & Grammar course at the ACCORD French Langauge School in Paris is a 29-hour course that targets your writing and grammar skills in the afternoon, whilst fine-tuning your speaking and reading skills in the morning. It really does cover every base in terms of the French language. You spend your weekday mornings exploring a different topic every day with an experienced, qualified French teacher in a class of international students, immersing yourself fully in the only language that everyone in the classroom speaks: French.
When you leave school for the day and go out into Paris itself, you have no choice but to carry on practising your vous conjugations when you ask for a recommendation at the bakery (pouvez-vous me conseiller ?) you bump into someone on the metro (excusez-moi), pay for your shopping at the supermarket (passez une belle soiree), etc. If you’re staying with a host family, you can continue using the vous form with them to practise your grammar from when you join them for a morning coffee to when you bid them goodnight.
So, if you’d like to take your international career to the next level and form a deeper connection with your French clients or colleagues, a trip to Paris to join the Writing & Grammar course at ACCORD Paris should be your next move.
