"Strategic reflections on transversal actions": the art of anglification

If part of your unofficial role is, like mine, to be one of a handful of “Anglo-Saxons” working in a large French company, you will almost certainly at some point hear the infamous words: “could you just take a look at the English in this email / presentation / report”.

If the person who asks you this is fairly senior, it’s usually wise to accept with a smile and get on with it. If they’re very senior indeed, the challenge is obviously to change as much as is necessary and that you can reasonably get away with without making them look like an idiot. (This is a delicate balancing act: if things get really desperate, my trick is to only put half your rewrite in tracked changes to minimize embarrassment when he opens your email).

Assuming you do have some latitude with the red pen, I’ve found that the whole thing goes quicker if you stop trying to work out what they’re trying to say in English and just imagine you’re French.  Someone has found a “good point of departure for a reflection”? They’re unlikely to be balancing mirrors on airport runways – the French will be something along the lines of “bon point de départ pour engager une reflection” In English, “a starting point for a discussion”.

So having got the idea – think French to improve the English- you can get out your berets and tricolore flags and keep a look out for the following clangers:

· Animate. The French animate meetings, websites, teams… and when they go on holiday, they expect animations in the evening. Anglo-Saxons on the other hand are remarkably inanimate. No single word exists – you might be ”leading” a team or a meeting, or “producing content” for a website. If you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in the middle of a French colonie de vacances in the middle of August you will look forward to the evening “entertainment”. Look at the context and find something that makes reasonable sense.

· Reference. As in,” X is a reference in the construction industry”. “Une reference” is used a lot in this context in French and sometimes just about goes in English… but only just. Try using adjectives like “major” or “leading” followed by the type of thing the company does e.g. “X is a leading construction company…”

· Transversal. The word that makes me really want to run for the hills. Transversal programmes, transversal themes… Very easy. They are “cross-“ something. Cross-business, cross-sector… In fact this one is so easy that if you change it often enough, some people may even catch on and start using it themselves.

· Actions. Very rarely actions, particularly if they happen after a reflection, or form part of a transversal programme. Almost always “initiatives”.

· Accompany. Don’t approach this one after a long day. “Accompagner le développement”, “accompagner ses clients” invariably show up in literal translation. There is no word, but the concept is not a bad one, so don’t roll your eyes and strike out the whole sentence. “Facilitate” can sometimes work for abstract concepts like development, growth etc. “Support” or “work with” can be used when talking about stakeholders. Sometimes it might be better to go one step back and work out what they’re really trying to say. “Supporting our client’s expansion / growth” for example, works better than just “supporting our clients”.

The thing about this list is it could go on for pages. In fact I’d love to know if other people have their own bêtes noires (not black beasts, please note!) to add to the list. Otherwise happy rewriting and just remember the golden rule – if someone tells you the document they’ve asked you to read has already been sent to several hundred senior managers, the response is always, “It looked pretty much fine to me”.