Gengo offers French translation services at affordable rates. Thousands of companies large and small trust Gengo to fuel their global growth.
Working with Gengo gives you access to thousands of certified French translators with years of translation and localization experience, as well as our intuitive platform and embedded quality tools. Our expert team can help you manage English to French translation projects of any size to find a flexible, efficient and economical solution for your translation needs.
French Translation Rates
Choose between two different levels of quality and pricing to match your needs. All our French translators have been pre-tested for each level, ensuring high quality translations.
From
$0.06 /word
From
$0.12 /word
Certified Customer Reviews
We are always happy to receive feedback from our customers about their experience using the Gengo platform. Listed here are real reviews, ratings, and comments that customers have left after they received their completed translation. Where a Quality Score of 3 or greater was received, the comment is marked in green, otherwise it is marked in red.
English to French Translation
On the surface, English and French can appear to be very similar languages. Indeed, they have overlapping histories and borrow from each other significantly. Translating between the two, however, can pose some significant translation challenges. The two languages, for example, differ on multiple aspects of grammar. 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. Only an experienced French translator with a keen eye for grammatical detail can be trusted to accurately overcome these linguistic obstacles.
A Translator must also take into account the six registers of the French language. These registers refer to levels of formality, from literary language at the top to slang at the bottom. 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. In a similar vein, the multiple global variations of French need to be respected. 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.
French Translation Services
Gengo is a leading provider of English to French translation services. Whether you’re looking to translate from French into English or English into French, no other LSP can so quickly provide translated content of such high quality at such low prices.
Our areas of expertise
If you plan on expanding into French speaking markets, you’re going to need to translate all your content into French. Gengo supports French translation of a wide range of document and content types, including:
- French website localization
- French mobile app localization
- French game localization
- French product description translation
- Customer support translation
- French marketing copy, ads and social media
- French news articles and entertainment
- French travel listings and guides
- French document translation
- French emails, letters and more
French Translation Tips
French Canadian vs. European French
From the very beginning of your translation project, you should be clear on whether you’re localizing into European French or Canadian French. The French spoken in Canada is distinct from the French spoken in France, so don’t make the mistake of using one language for both audiences. Successfully navigating the subtle differences between the two forms of the language, such as the appropriate choice of words (e.g. the term for shoes: chaussures vs. souliers), can make a huge difference when it comes to forming quality relationships with customers.
Translation text expansion
Translating from English into French typically requires around 15–20% more words, as French is a lengthier language than English. This should always be taken into consideration when localizing your website or app into French.
Professional French Translators
Gengo’s French translators are experts in their field with years of professional translation experience under their belts. This is why Gengo is trusted by global companies like YouTube, Airbnb and Sony to translate content at high quality and lightning speed. Our innovative translation platform and global network of translators means that no matter the size or complexity of your French translation project, we are able to deliver on time, every time, with quality assured.
If you are looking to translate your English content not only to French, here are some more available languages:
- Japanese translator, see Japanese translation
- Spanish translator, see Spanish translation
- German translator, see German translation
- Portuguese translator, see Portuguese translation
- Dutch translator, see Dutch translation
- Italian translator, see Italian translation
- Chinese translator, see Chinese translation
- Arabic translator, see Arabic translation
Popular French Translation Phrases
Take a look at some of the most popular and searched for English phrases and their French translations.
| What to translate from English to French | English to French translation |
|---|---|
| Hello | Bonjour |
| Thank you | Merci |
| Goodbye | Au revoir |
| Goodnight | Bonne nuit |
| I love you | Je t’aime |
| Please | S’il vous plaît |
| Beautiful | Magnifique |
| I miss you | Tu me manques |
| Happy birthday! | Joyeux anniversaire! |
French Language Facts
French is a Romance language and part of the Indo-European language family. 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. Despite close geographic proximity, the French language differs in many ways from the Germanic languages of Germany, Britain and the Netherlands.
- There are about 260 million French native speakers, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.
- There are 29 independent nations where French is an official language.
- French is used by many international organizations such as NATO, the Olympics committee, the WTO, and more.
- French is the only language aside from English that is taught in every country of the world, with 100+ million students worldwide.
French, a global language
The upside of French being a global language is that it’s spoken by a large group of people. French is not only spoken in France, but also in Belgium, Canada (Quebec), Switzerland and by many countries in Africa. It’s the official language in 29 countries and spoken by an estimated 274 million people.
Although French is pretty similar in all regions, translators need to be aware of the differences. Famously, outside of France, the words for the numbers 70 and 90 are different. In France it’s soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix respectively. Outside of France they simply say septante for seventy and nonante for ninety. Gengo’s translators are native speakers and well-aware of these subtle differences, allowing your business to forge a quality relationship with your customers no matter where they are.
French Translation Dictionaries
Free English to French dictionaries and online translation tools
Gengo offers a world-class human translation (HT) service tailored to each of our clients’ specific needs. This is what we do best. In some cases, however, machine translation (MT) – translation services powered by AI and machine learning – are a great alternative for looking up a word or translating a phrase on the go.
Though machine translation can’t beat human translators yet in terms of quality, accuracy and tone, we understand that sometimes – when all you need is a simple sentence translated or when a rough approximation will do – machine translation can be very useful.
Here’s a rundown of some of the most popular free to use English to French dictionaries and translation tools.
Reverso – English-French translation
What is it? Reverso is a simple online translation tool. Type whatever it is you want translating into the input field, hit the go button and your translated word or phrase will appear in mere seconds.
Pros: Reverso is easy to navigate and simple to use. The tool also produces multiple, contextual variations of what you’re trying to translate.
Cons: Accuracy cannot be guaranteed when translating lengthy content and is unlikely to impress a native speaker.
Google Translate – English-French translation
What is it? Google Translate allows users to translate simple text using their keyboard, as well as using their voice, camera and handwriting.
Pros: The Google Translate mobile app is available offline and its range of input options allows for users to decide exactly how they would like to translate.
Cons: When translating longer pieces of text, Google Translate cannot be trusted for accuracy.
Systran – English-French translation
What is it? Systran is a market leading machine translation provider, specialising in translation services for business use.
Pros: Systran provides a number of different platforms, including an instant online translator, browser extension and a mobile app for translating on the move.
Cons: Unlike other translation tools, Systran does not offer suggestions for alternative wording or phrasing.
Promt – English-French translation
What is it? Promt’s machine learning translation engine promises accurate translations for a wide range of document types.
Pros: With desktop and mobile versions, Promt’s key selling point is its convenience.
Cons: Promt is an expensive translation option, especially if you would like to take advantage of all of its features.
Linguee – English-French translation
What is it? Linguee is an online dictionary tool. It also displays examples of your search term being used in real-world contexts pulled from external websites.
Pros: By placing whatever you need translating into different contexts, Linguee allows users to gain an understanding of how their search term is used in different situations.
Cons: Linguee’s contextual comparison tool only works accurately for single words or simple phrases, meaning it is not useful for translating longer pieces of text.
French Localization Tips
Localizing websites using hreflang meta tags
When translating a website it’s important to ensure that search engines are able to understand exactly what language (or languages) your content is available in. In addition to the language attribute on the <html> tag, each page should also include a <head> section in which links to its localized equivalent are listed.
If the primary language of your website is English, for example, and you want to translate it into French, then every translated page should include the following block of code in the <head> section:
<link rel="alternate" href="https://example.com/about/" hreflang="en" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://example.com/fr/about/" hreflang="fr" />
Keep in mind that this block should be added to both the original and the localized versions of your page (in this case: example.com/about/ & example.com/fr/about/). By doing this, each page points to every available localized version of itself, making it easy for search engines to understand the structure of your site and display the appropriate translation for every user.
Targeting a language and a country
In addition to specifying the language that your content is written in, you can also specify particular countries that you would like to target. This is ideal for a language that is spoken in multiple countries, such as French (spoken in France, Belgium and Canada, among others). To do this, the country to be targeted is simply included in the hreflang attribute, like so:
<link rel="alternate" href="https://example.com/fr/" hreflang="fr" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://example.com/fr-BE/" hreflang="fr-be" />
<link rel="alternate" href="https://example.com/fr-CA/" hreflang="fr-ca" />