In France it’s soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix respectively. Famously, outside of France, the words for the numbers 70 and 90 are different. It’s the official language in 29 countries and spoken by an estimated 274 million people.Īlthough French is pretty similar in all regions, translators need to be aware of the differences. French is not only spoken in France, but also in Belgium, Canada (Quebec), Switzerland and by many countries in Africa. The upside of French being a global language is that it’s spoken by a large group of people.

French is the only language aside from English that is taught in every country of the world, with 100+ million students worldwide.

French is used by many international organizations such as NATO, the Olympics committee, the WTO, and more.

There are 29 independent nations where French is an official language.

There are about 260 million French native speakers, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

Despite close geographic proximity, the French language differs in many ways from the Germanic languages of Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. It is closely linked to other Romance languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and Italian, with their common origins meaning they have borrowed from each other significantly in terms of vocabulary, grammar and conjugation over the course of their evolution. While the language is generally mutually intelligible wherever it is spoken, if your translated content is to have maximum impact, local variations and differing cultural touchstones must be taken into account.įrench is a Romance language and part of the Indo-European language family. In a similar vein, the multiple global variations of French need to be respected. Knowing which register is appropriate for the intended audience and the ability to write convincingly in that register is key to successful English to French translation.

These registers refer to levels of formality, from literary language at the top to slang at the bottom.

Only an experienced French translator with a keen eye for grammatical detail can be trusted to accurately overcome these linguistic obstacles.Ī Translator must also take into account the six registers of the French language. French assigns nouns a gender (affecting meaning) and uses its own syntactic arrangements, while English contains many unintuitive grammar rules that can be difficult to navigate. The two languages, for example, differ on multiple aspects of grammar. Translating between the two, however, can pose some significant translation challenges. Indeed, they have overlapping histories and borrow from each other significantly. On the surface, English and French can appear to be very similar languages.