French Retail & E-Commerce Translation

About the French Language

The French language is a Romance language that was first spoken in France. French is also spoken in Belgium (Wallonia), Luxembourg, Quebec (Canada), Switzerland (Romandy) and many different countries in Africa (Francophone Africa).

During the 17th century, French replaced Latin as the most important language of diplomacy and international relations (lingua franca). It retained this role until approximately the middle of the 20th century, when it was replaced by English as the United States became the dominant global power following the Second World War. Stanley Meisler of the Los Angeles Times said that the fact that the Treaty of Versailles was written in English as well as French was the "first diplomatic blow" against the language.

During the Grand Siècle (17th century), France, under the rule of powerful leaders such as Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIV, enjoyed a period of prosperity and prominence among European nations. Richelieu established the Académie française to protect the French language. By the early 1800s, Parisian French had become the primary language of the aristocracy in France.

Near the beginning of the 19th century, the French government began to pursue policies with the end goal of eradicating the many minority and regional languages (patois) spoken in France. This began in 1794 with Henri Grégoire's "Report on the necessity and means to annihilate the patois and to universalise the use of the French language". When public education was made compulsory, only French was taught and the use of any other (patois) language was punished. The goals of the Public School System were made especially clear to the French speaking teachers sent to teach students in regions such as Occitania and Brittany: "And remember, Gents: you were given your position in order to kill the Breton language" were instructions given from a French official to teachers in the French department of Finistère (western Brittany). The prefect of Basses-Pyrénées in the French Basque Country wrote in 1846: "Our schools in the Basque Country are particularly meant to substitute the Basque language with French...". Students were taught that their ancestral languages were inferior and they should be ashamed of them; this process was known in the Occitan-speaking region as Vergonha.

About 220 million people speak French as a native or a second language. Like the other Romance languages, French nouns have genders that are divided into masculine (masculin) and feminine (féminin) words.

French Translation Expertise

French legal and administrative language is notoriously formal and uses long, multi-clause sentences with subjunctive constructions that can be difficult to render precisely in English. The language has strict grammatical gender (masculine/feminine) that affects articles, adjectives, and past participles — errors in gender agreement in official translations can appear unprofessional or unclear. Translators must also navigate significant regional variation: French documents from France, Canada (Québec), Belgium, Switzerland, and Francophone Africa each use different administrative terminology, legal systems, and even spelling conventions.

French uses the Latin alphabet with five diacritical marks: acute accent (é), grave accent (è, à, ù), circumflex (ê, â, î, ô, û), trema (ë, ï, ü), and cedilla (ç). These are not optional decorations — omitting them changes meaning (ou = or, où = where) and is considered a spelling error in formal documents. The 1990 spelling reforms introduced some simplifications, but many official documents still follow traditional orthography.

Common French Documents

French documents commonly requiring translation include the acte de naissance (birth certificate — available as copie intégrale, extrait avec filiation, or extrait sans filiation), acte de mariage (marriage certificate), casier judiciaire (criminal record bulletin), and diplôme (educational diploma). Australian authorities typically require the copie intégrale or extrait avec filiation rather than the basic extract.

NAATI offers certification for French translators and interpreters at multiple levels, with a substantial pool of accredited practitioners across Australia. French is one of the most commonly translated languages, and NAATI-certified French translators are readily available in all major cities.

About the French Language

French was the official language of the English court for over 300 years after the Norman Conquest of 1066 — English legal terms like "plaintiff," "defendant," "jury," "verdict," and "attorney" are all French in origin. The Académie française, founded in 1635, still actively polices the French language, attempting to prevent English loanwords from entering French — coining courriel for "email" and logiciel for "software," though everyday French speakers often ignore these recommendations. French is spoken on every inhabited continent and is an official language in 29 countries, making it second only to English in geographic spread.