This document discusses common mistakes that French speakers make when speaking English and provides tips to sound more natural. It addresses issues like word order, overuse of commas, choice of words that sound too French, and proper use of adverbs. Examples are given of sentence structures and emphasizing certain words to follow English conventions. Formality in word choice is also covered, advising the use of shorter Anglo-Saxon words instead of longer Latin-derived ones.

1. Webinaires Technologia
Garantir un anglais plus authentique
Par Annie Booth,
formatrice en anglais pour francophones,
TECHNOLOGIAFormer. Performer. Transformer. www.technologia.com

3. ▪ Common sentence structure
mistakes
▪ Overuse of the comma
▪ Choice of words

4. Why does your English
sound like French?

5. French and English are both
SVO (SUBJECT – VERB – OBJECT) languages

6. Word order rules

7. Un noir chat?
OR
Un chat noir?

8. 1. John and Greg meet at 9:00 every Friday to discuss
new marketing strategies.
Find the mistake
2. Principal Smith walks through the hallways impatiently
to make sure no one is late.

9. ROYAL ORDER OF ADVERBS
VERB MANNER PLACE FREQUENCY TIME PURPOSE
Annie
teaches
English
enthusiastically online every Friday at 6:00 p.m. to help people
improve their
skills.
Our boss
walks
impatiently through the
production
room
every morning at 8:00 a.m.
sharp
to make sure
no one is late.

10. Comma, comma, comma

11. Ahhhh…. une virgule !
A comma! What is this
doing here???

12. Rules – a few examples
Between the day and year
September 5, 2019
Separating items in a list
I bought eggs, milk and sugar.

14. Emphasis - a few examples
Sentence inversions with subordinating conjunctions
Unless you show your I.D., you will not be admitted.
Adverb at the beginning of a sentence (ROYAL ORDER OF ADVERBS)
Every morning at 9:00, we accept calls for emergency appointments.

15. Word choice

16. If it looks like French, it sounds
like French
Faux amis
actually – actuellement
assist – assister
comprehensive – compréhensif
deceive – décevoir
Semi faux amis
important
intéressant

17. If it looks like French, it sounds
like French
Formal
Words of Latin origin are considered more formal in English.
verify
require
locate
What would you use instead of these verbs?

18. ▪ Fautes courantes chez les francophones – Volet I
▪ Fautes courantes chez les francophones – Volet II
English training courses at Technologia

19. Thank you, and remember…