French language guide
Understand the context before translating into or out of French.
Practical guides for translating files, emails and reviewing results
Language overview
French is listed in the translation catalog under the language identifier fr. Selecting this entry sets the source or target language; it does not specify every regional variety or specialist vocabulary.
Writing system
The default writing system associated with this catalog entry is Latin. Preserve accents, punctuation and personal names. This default script information is derived from Unicode locale data and is not an exhaustive list of scripts used by speakers.
Common usage
Use the French translator to understand correspondence, study material, travel information and short workplace drafts. For a specialist text, supply a complete sentence rather than an isolated term, and retain any context that identifies the subject.
Separate French prose from identifiers
A French message can contain ordinary sentences alongside names, order references and quoted document titles. Mark those roles before reviewing the translation. Translate the message’s meaning, but compare the spelling of a person’s name with the reliable original rather than deciding how it ought to look. A hyphen or accent should not be discarded merely because another system makes it inconvenient.
Review a request and its answer together when the second message is short. A reply such as “Yes, that is possible” needs the earlier question to establish what has been agreed. In a finished French draft, read the greeting and closing with the body, and ask a fluent reader about tone when the relationship matters. Do not add a commitment that the source did not make.
Further reading: W3C: personal names around the world
Translation tips
Review grammatical gender, accents, and tu versus vous.
Check negation and the subject of each sentence. Compare quantities, currencies and dates with the original. A fluent reader should review important text for meaning and tone before it is published.