50 English words used in French

If you serious about speaking French like a native, you’ll quickly realize that a lot of English words are used in French. Some people even talk about an English invasion. You may already know popular English words for food and drinks used in France such as cheese burger, smoothie, poke bowl,…Today we’ll give you a quick guide of the 50 English words you can use in French.

1. English words in a French speaking office
2. Communicate in French about news and medias with English words
3. Sports and hobbies with English terms in French
4. Speak about clothes in French with English words

• (Aller à un) afterwork :  Employees naturally migrate to a bar when the work day is over. A great classic of British culture, it has become globalized
• ASAP : We often say ‘je reviens vers vous asap’ (I’ll get back to you asap) or ‘je vous donne une réponse asap’
• Booster sa carrière : To amp you you career
• Brainstorming : Terms used for decades and still applied to talk about exchanging ideas
• Un bug : Although the French noun should be ‘bogue’, we talk about un bug informatique or bugger (sur quelque chose) for the verb
• Burn out : Unfortunately, very common now in the office vocabulary. We will say ‘faire un burn out’ 
• Un challenge / challenger : We can ‘challenger quelqu’un’ (challenge someone) or use the reflexive verb ‘se challenger’  (to push your limits)
• Checker : To verify. ‘Faire un check’ has nothing to do with money but is a fist bump
• Dress code : We will see this as ‘code vestimentaire’, ‘tenue vestimentaire’ in your French contract. But colleagues or manager will talk about un dress code
• Email, e-mail or mail : All 3 spellings are Ok. ‘Faire ou écrire un mail’ is sending an email, not sending a letter

• Un flop : Un top and un flop are success and failure
• Un geek / une geekette : If geek has been used for a while, une geekette has recently been added to feminise this term.
• Leader : We speak about un leader / une leadeuse for a person managing a team or having leadership qualities
• Meeting : We saw the differences between meeting, réunion and rendez-vous in our Quick Guide to Business French
• Open space : This is self explanatory, we will say ‘travailler en open space’ , ‘des bureaux en open space’
• Un planning : We can say ‘faire un planning’ or the verb ‘planifier’
• Smartphone : Although you can use ‘un téléphone mobile‘, smartphone is more common
• Team building : This is quite recent, we will say ‘organiser des évènements de team building’ (team building events) or ‘avoir des qualités de team building’

• Boycotter
• Un briefing / Briefer quelqu’un
• Faire le buzz : Starting a rumor on the Internet, make media noise, make sure to be picked up by social networks.
• Cool : ‘C’est cool’ or ‘c’est pas cool’
• Fake news : False or misleading information presented as news, ‘les fake news’ have been very popular since the Trump presidency
• Un follower : ‘Avoir beaucoup de followers’ is the goal of many ‘influenceurs et influenceuses’ on social medias
• Être hypé : ‘La hype’ is something trendy. ‘Etre hypé’ is to be excited about something
• Une interview : Not to be mixed with un entretien as we talked about it previously

• Top (être au top / c’est top) : ‘C’est top’ ! means it’s awesome !
• Tweeter : to write a tweet has become a verb in the French language
• Swag : ‘Le swag’ means the style, the charisma. ‘Avoir du swag’ is to be very fashionable but also to have a special kind of charisma
• créer/organiser un Zoom : the app used for online French lessons has become a noun

• All-inclusive
• Baby-sitter
• Basket : It can represent the sport ‘jouer au basket’ (basketball). But it can also mean sneakers with ‘porter des baskets’ (wear sneakers)
• Best-of
• Booker : You can ‘booker un restaurant, un voyage’ (to make a booking, a reservation). You can also be ‘overbooké’ (too much on your plate)
• Bruncher : ‘Bruncher’ ou ‘faire un brunch’ has been a French, and even more so Parisian, trend for a little whitle now.
• Un Drive : Even more popular since the lockdown
• Fitness / être fit : ‘Etre fit’ is to be in good shape, with abs
• Happy hours

• Live : ‘être en live’ means en direct. In informal French, we have a saying ‘partir en live’ where events become uncontrollable.
• Low cost : ‘des voyages low cost’ or ‘des compagnies aériennes low cost’ (low cost airlines)
• Making-of : Behind-the-scenes
• Replay
• Stand up : ‘Faire du stand up’ (stand up comedy) and ‘faire du stand up paddle’
• Streaming : ‘Des émissions en streaming’ (streaming broadcasts)
• Week-end

• Un pull = Or ‘un pull-over’ is a jumper
• Un slip = Man underwear
• Un smoking = A tuxedo
• Un string = A thong
• Un sweat = A sweater
• Un tee-shirt
• Un top

Generally, these words keep the english pronunciation, such as ‘un jean’ (say ‘jeen’). For more details, feel free to read more tips to improve your pronunciation in French.

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