While general useful French phrases are valuable to all tourists, if you are a business traveler, you might need specialized French economics phrases.
One thing that can be difficult is that direct translations do not always work. If you need an economics phrase, you're better off looking it up in a dictionary than using an online French phrase translator. Automated translators often lose a lot in translation!
Essential French Economics Phrases
Some of the essential phrases one needs for economics are phrases that are also applicable to many other fields of business.
Encadrement intermédiaire
This is the term that refers to anyone who is in middle management. Someone who works in middle management is part of this group, and the entire group can be named as a whole with this phrase.
Restructuration
This is an interesting French term as it is equivalent to the English word 'restructuring'. It can be used in any case of downsizing or growing a company. Whether you need a word to describe a slew of layoffs, a word to describe a major hiring spree, or a word to describe that major change is taking place that reorganizes the workers and inner workings of the company, this is the word that you need!
Achalandeur
This is a fancy French word for 'customer contact employee'. This is defined as being the person who is working directly in contact with the clients of a company, regardless of the type of company in question.
Consommateur cible
You can probably imagine that consommateur is a 'consumer', but cible might be a more obscure word. This phrase means 'target consumer' and can be used in any industry, but generally in financial contexts of marketing.
Commerce personnalisé
Directly translated: personalized trade, the phrase has an actual meaning of 'dynamic trade' in English. This is a common phrase in management and in economics.
Extension de marque
A 'marque' is a brand (in any domain). This phrase, logically then, means 'brand extension' or 'brand stretching'.
Online Contexts
The following economics terms are all related to online economics and online business.
Économie en ligne
En ligne means 'online'; this elegant French phrase is used to describe the 'new economy' or 'net economy', which describes the fact that the 21st century economy is one that is largely aided and run by online networking.
'Entreprise'
An entreprise is a business. Two types of online businesses are common economics phrases:
- B2C: Business-to-Consumer: entreprise à consommateur en ligne
- B2B: Business-toBusiness: entreprise à entreprise en ligne
Marque en ligne
A particularly useful word for the 21st century, this means 'e-brand'. Any brand that is designated as an e-brand can be described with this French equivalent of the term.
Personnel Vocabulary
The people who are in business have specialized names in French, much like in English. Some important functions in the world of economics are important vocabulary items for anyone in the field.
Responsable de la fiscalité
This is the tax manager of a business. Responsable is a commonly mistranslated French word; French people often translate this function as 'a responsible' because in French un responsable is the person who is responsible for something. In this case, the tax manager is the person responsible for the fiscal operations of a company.
Responsable des grands-comptes
Another person who is responsible for something; in this case, the person is responsible for the most important, or the 'key' accounts of a company. An English translation for this phrase is 'key account manager'.
Putting It All Together: Etiquette and Vocabulary
Now that you've got your French economics phrases in order, be sure to brush up on the finer points of French business etiquette before you head to France. Armed with a professional vocabulary, and knowing how to greet colleagues, how to dress for the office world, and remembering to use vous instead of tu, your business trip is sure to be a success.
