For any of you who have visited a supermarket during your summer holiday to France, “la rentrée” is an expression you will definitely have come across. It’s often translated as “back to school”, especially when it comes to supermarkets promoting all the shiny new pens, trendy backpacks and essential stationery that French schoolchildren all need in time for September. But there’s more to “la rentrée” than just school prep, so Active Languages thought we’d take you on a deep dive into the expression and see what embracing this time of year could do for you.
A potted history
Back in 1231, Pope Gregory IX has universities close over the summer months so the students could go home to help their farming families during the harvest period. And lo, the summer holiday was born! Once the harvest was over, the universities would reopen their doors to the students for “la rentrée”, quite literally “the return”. It marks an end to the holidays and the resumption of the normal routine, but only to a point, as you’ll soon see.
Back to the routine
The summer holidays are a serious business in France, lasting 8 weeks as opposed to 6 in the UK. It’s not just the kids who get lots of time off, the grown-ups also get in on the action with the majority of French people taking an average of 2.2 weeks off during the summer break. So when it’s time for the children to go back to school, the adults also have their own “rentrée” as they go back to work or resume their day-to-day routine.
For children and teenagers who have gone on a language stay abroad during the summer, the start of the school year will also be a time of additional excitement because they will be able to show their classmates and their teachers the significant progress they will have made in just two or three weeks in immersion. Because nothing beats a language stay in the country where you learn the language!
Rest, relaxation and rentrée
Underneath the general sense of returning to normality, “la rentrée” also captures the renewed and fresh energy that comes after a well-deserved break. If you’re visiting France during autumn or you live there, you’ll notice a whole host of new programmes on the TV, new stock in the shops and window displays, new exhibitions at museums and cultural venues as well as new reforms from the politicians. There’s even “la rentrée littéraire”, when publishers launch a whole host of new books and present literary awards in early autumn.
Here is for example the selection of books, news and reviews offered by the French FNAC. In this selection: La collision (Paul Gasnier investigates the death of his mother, hit by a biker), Tant mieux (Amélie Nothomb’s allegorical tribute to her mother), Les derniers jours de l’apesanteur (by Fabrice Caro: chronicle of adolescence), and many more…
What “la rentrée” can do for you and your business
Take a leaf out of France’s book and embrace your return to routine with the fresh energy you’ve built up after the summer calm. Pick up some shiny new stationery to get back into the right frame of mind and focus on new challenges for your business that you’d like to overcome. Make going “back to school” or “back to work” into an opportunity to change things up at work. How about expanding your customer database with newsletters available in their language? You could surprise a regular overseas client with an email written in their mother tongue and secure their loyalty for the long term. Have you considered translating your product descriptions into different languages to reach more buyers on Amazon?
Active Languages Translation Agency has fully embraced “la rentrée”. We’re back to work (not that we were off over summer) and our human translators are here to help you inject some fresh autumn energy into your business.
Contact us for a free, no-obligation quote and let’s give “back to work” a run for its money!
