French · Specialist course
Business french lessons online for meetings, correspondence and register
French professional correspondence keeps conventions that English abandoned decades ago. Getting them wrong reads as carelessness rather than as a language error.
- CEFR B2
Who this is for
Is this the right course for you?
Professionals working in or with French-speaking organisations who have roughly B1 or above and need to operate credibly rather than merely be understood.
What you cover
What the lessons cover
- Meetings: chairing, interrupting, disagreeing without giving offence
- Correspondence: the formulas French business writing still expects
- Presentations and the questions that follow them
- Negotiation language and diplomatic hedging
- Telephone and video-call French, which is harder than either party expects
- When vous becomes tu, and how that shift is actually navigated
Business French is a register course for people who already function in French. The grammar is usually adequate; what is missing is the set of conventions that mark a writer as someone who belongs in a French professional context.
Correspondence formulas
French business writing retains opening and closing formulas with no English equivalent, and using the wrong one is immediately visible. This is pattern learning rather than difficult language, and it pays back quickly.
Meetings
French meeting culture tends to be more argumentative than English-speaking norms, and English speakers often mistake disagreement for hostility. Lessons cover both the language and the convention.
Business French questions, answered properly
What level do I need before business French is worthwhile?
Around B1. Below that, professional register layered on unstable grammar produces sentences that are formal and wrong, which reads worse than plain and correct. If you are not there yet we will say so and suggest general lessons first, usually three to six months before this course earns its fee.
Are French business email conventions really that fixed?
More fixed than in English, yes. The closing formula in particular follows patterns that have no real English equivalent and that native correspondents notice immediately. None of it is linguistically difficult — it is pattern learning, and a few lessons of it changes how your writing is received.
Can we work on my actual documents?
Yes, and it is the most productive way to run this course. Bring real emails, a presentation you have to deliver, or the agenda of a meeting you are dreading. Working on genuine material builds the vocabulary you will use next week rather than the vocabulary a textbook thinks professionals need.
Related courses
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DELF B2
Applicants to French universities, professionals who need documented B2, and candidates who hold B1 and need the certificate that actually opens doors.
DALF C1
Applicants to competitive French programmes, professionals in senior or regulated roles, and candidates who hold B2 and need the next permanent diploma.
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