French is the language I work in most.
I grew up in Belgium speaking it, studied marketing in French at university, lived three years in Paris in my twenties, and spent ten years sharing a Caribbean office with Québécois colleagues.
When clients ask me about English to French translation, the first thing I tell them is that there is no such single language.
Hexagonal French, Belgian French, Swiss French, and Québécois French each have different vocabulary, different register conventions, and different commercial expectations.
Pick the wrong variant and your French copy lands somewhere between odd and offensive.
The page below covers how I actually run English to French translation work in 2026, what the five French markets demand, and where translation alone falls short of getting you visible.
Why generic English to French translation keeps failing
Most of the bad French copy I get asked to fix shares the same three faults.
The first is wrong-variant choice.
A campaign written for Parisians but shipped to Québec reads as foreign and reduces conversion immediately.
The reverse is worse: Canadian phrasing on a French website looks like an Americanism written by someone who learned French from movies.
The second fault is raw machine translation pushed live without human review.
DeepL is genuinely strong on English-to-French, but French readers spot the giveaways within two sentences.
Overuse of “très”, incorrect gender agreement on rare nouns, anglicised verb-noun combinations, and clunky title case in headings all flag the output as untranslated rather than localised.
The third fault is the one nobody talks about.
Most agencies translate the words and ignore the SEO.
The French page ranks for nothing because the source-language keyword research was never adapted to how French speakers actually search Google.fr, Qwant, or Ecosia.
The five French markets and what each one wants
Before I quote a project, I want to know which French audience you are writing for.
France (Hexagonal French)
The reference variant, with around 67 million native speakers in France itself.
Formal register matters more than in English markets.
Use “vous” by default for business audiences, never “tu”, unless the brand is explicitly youth-oriented.
Anglicisms tolerated in tech (cloud, startup, e-commerce) but rejected in luxury, legal, and finance.
Belgium (Belgian French)
Around 4.5 million native French speakers in Wallonia and Brussels.
Closer to Hexagonal French than Québécois, but with characteristic vocabulary differences: “septante” for seventy, “nonante” for ninety, “déjeuner” for breakfast rather than lunch.
Bilingual market with Dutch speakers in Flanders, so multilingual SEO setup matters more here than almost anywhere else in Europe.
Switzerland (Swiss French / Romandy)
About 2 million speakers in the Romandy region around Geneva and Lausanne.
Vocabulary closer to Belgian French (septante, nonante) but with its own retail and legal terminology.
Premium market with high average order values, particularly in finance, watchmaking, and pharma.
Worth budgeting for proper local review, not just generic Hexagonal copy.
Québec (Québécois French)
Around 7 million native French speakers across Québec and parts of Ontario and New Brunswick.
The most distinct variant in commercial use.
Office québécois de la langue française enforces French-first signage and packaging rules under Bill 96, so copy intended for Québec must meet specific legal thresholds.
Anglicisms are aggressively localised: “courriel” for email, “magasinage” for shopping, “stationnement” for parking.
Run Hexagonal copy in Québec and you will get flagged on regulatory and cultural grounds.
African and OIF markets
French is an official language in 27 African countries, with over 140 million speakers across Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and the DRC among others.
For most African markets, formal Hexagonal French is the appropriate register, with regional adjustments for local terminology where relevant.
Worth getting right because mobile-first French-speaking consumers in West Africa are one of the fastest-growing e-commerce segments globally.
The global language services and technology industry generated $49.68 billion in 2023, down from $52.01 billion in 2022, with French consistently in the top three target languages by global translation volume.
Source: CSA Research, 2024 Market Sizing Update
How I run an English to French translation project
The same five-step process applies whether the source is a 500-word landing page or a 60,000-word website.
Step 1: Source audit
Before any translation, I read the English source critically.
Weak English produces weak French, no matter how good the translator is.
If the source needs tightening, I flag it before the meter starts.
Step 2: Variant selection and brief
We confirm target market, register, and any non-negotiable terminology.
If you have a glossary or competitor copy you admire in French, send it.
If you do not, I build a 30 to 60 term glossary from your English content and confirm it with you before drafting.
Step 3: Translation by native French linguists
I work with a small team of native French translators based in France, Belgium, and Québec.
Variant assignment is based on target market, not whoever is free that week.
For legal and certified work, I bring in traducteurs assermentés registered with French courts.
Step 4: Post-editing and quality control
Every translation gets reviewed by a second native linguist.
For AI-assisted projects, the workflow becomes machine translation followed by full post-editing, which the industry calls MTPE or post-AI editing.
You can read more about that pipeline on my post-AI editing page.
Step 5: SEO and CMS delivery
For website translation, I do not stop at delivering a Word document.
I push the French content directly into WPML, Polylang, or TranslatePress with proper hreflang tags, French metas, and a French URL structure.
The keyword research is done in French before drafting, not bolted on after.
See French SEO for the full setup.
Where translation alone is not enough
Three adjacent services often need to ship alongside the translation itself.
Multilingual SEO copywriting
For marketing pages, I do not translate sentence by sentence.
I rewrite around the French keyword cluster while preserving your tone and offer.
See multilingual SEO copywriting for how that differs from straight translation.
Transcreation
For taglines, ads, hero copy, and creative campaigns, a direct translation almost always loses the punch.
What you want is transcreation: a fresh French version that achieves the same emotional effect, even if it shares almost no words with the source.
French paid search and PPC
If you are running Google Ads or Meta campaigns in French markets, the ad copy has its own constraints.
Headline length, CTA conventions, and bid strategy all change between Hexagonal and Québec markets.
See my piece on running a French PPC campaign for the practical detail.
Service tiers and what each one covers
| Service | Best for | Includes | Typical turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard translation | Internal documents, manuals, technical content | Native translator + reviewer + glossary | 2,500 words per day |
| SEO translation | Website pages, blog content, landing pages | French keyword research + on-page SEO + CMS push | 1,500 words per day |
| Transcreation | Ads, hero copy, taglines, brand campaigns | Concept rewrite + cultural adaptation + multiple options | Project-based |
| MTPE / post-AI editing | High-volume content with budget constraints | Machine translation + full human post-editing + QA | 4,000 words per day |
| Certified / sworn translation | Legal documents, official certificates, court filings | Traducteur assermenté, stamped output | 3 to 7 days |
The most expensive translation mistake I see is companies treating French as one language. Shipping Parisian copy into Québec, or Belgian register into a Geneva audience, costs more in lost conversion than the price difference between proper localisation and a generic one-variant job.
— Michael Bastin, multilingual SEO and translation consultant
A real example from a recent project
A Spanish e-commerce client wanted their full product catalogue translated for the French and Belgian markets.
Eight thousand SKUs, six hundred category descriptions, and a hundred-page corporate site.
The pure word count would have been around 180,000 words.
Three decisions kept the budget realistic.
One: SKU short descriptions went through MTPE rather than standard human translation, because the repetition rate was high and the linguistic risk per item was low.
Two: category descriptions and brand pages were SEO-translated with French keyword research, not literally translated.
Three: the homepage hero, three flagship campaigns, and the about-us page were transcreated by a single native Parisian copywriter and then locally reviewed by a Belgian linguist for the .be subdomain.
Total turnaround: 11 weeks.
French organic traffic moved from negligible to a meaningful share of the brand’s overall sessions within the first two quarters after launch.
How to brief me for an English to French project
The fastest path to a useful quote is sending me four things.
The source content, even in rough form.
The target market: France, Belgium, Switzerland, Québec, OIF Africa, or a combination.
The intended use: website pages, ads, legal documents, marketing collateral, or technical manuals.
Your existing French presence, if any, so I can audit what currently ranks and where the gaps sit.
From there I quote a fixed price for the project, not a per-word rate, so you know the cost up front.
Where to start
French is a high-value translation pair when the work is done properly.
It is also the language where I see the most damage caused by cheap or rushed translation: lost rankings, regulatory flags in Québec, and brand copy that quietly turns French readers away.
For a free 20-minute audit of your current French-language content, get in touch and I will walk through what I see.
For the wider translation offer across other language pairs, see my expert translation services page.
For background on how I work and why translation and SEO need to be planned together, the about page covers the rest.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need separate French translations for France and Québec?
For website content, ads, and marketing materials: yes, almost always.
For internal documents, manuals, and technical reference material with low cultural exposure, one well-written Hexagonal French version can cover both markets if your audience tolerates it.
Can I just use DeepL or ChatGPT for French translation?
For personal use, internal drafts, and low-stakes communication, yes.
For anything client-facing, legal, marketing-led, or SEO-driven, raw machine output is detectable and costly.
MTPE is the middle ground: machine output edited by a native linguist, billed lower than full human translation but still safe to publish.
How long does an English to French website translation take?
A typical 10,000-word business website with SEO integration runs 4 to 6 weeks end to end.
That includes keyword research, translation, review, CMS push, hreflang setup, and a single round of revisions.
Larger e-commerce projects with full catalogue translation typically run 8 to 14 weeks.
Do you handle certified or sworn French translation?
Yes, through direct partnerships with traducteurs assermentés registered with French courts.
Sworn translation is required for legal documents submitted to French administrative bodies, courts, and consulates.
Typical turnaround is 3 to 7 working days depending on document length and notary requirements.
