At C2, what betrays a non-native written French is rarely grammar. It is the surface: a missing space before a colon, English quotation marks, a capital letter on Français where it should be lower case, a semicolon used as a comma. None of it affects comprehension. All of it is noticed instantly by a French reader, because French typography is codified and taught.
This lesson is the code, plus the spelling reform you need a position on, plus a proofreading method.
In 1990 the Conseil supérieur de la langue française published a set of rectifications orthographiques, endorsed by the Académie. They are recommended, not compulsory: both spellings are correct, and you will meet both. Schools in France and Québec now teach the new forms.
| Change | Traditional | Rectified |
|---|---|---|
| Circumflex optional on i and u | coût, maître, paraître | cout, maitre, paraitre |
| …but kept where it distinguishes | dû, jeûne, sûr, mûr | unchanged |
| Regular plurals for compounds | des après-midi | des après-midis |
| Hyphens in numerals throughout | vingt et un mille | vingt-et-un-mille |
| Accent follows pronunciation | événement, réglementer | évènement, règlementer |
| Some welded compounds | porte-monnaie | portemonnaie |
| -olle and -otter simplified | corolle, frisotter | corole, frisoter |
Pick one system and be internally consistent inside a document. Nobody will object to either; everybody will notice if maitre and maître appear on the same page. Note the survivors: dû, sûr, mûr and jeûne keep the circumflex because it distinguishes them from du, sur, mur and jeune.
French puts a thin non-breaking space before certain punctuation marks. English does not. This one rule, applied, makes your French look professionally set.
| Mark | Space before? | Example |
|---|---|---|
| ; : ! ? | yes (thin, non-breaking) | Vraiment ? Oui ! Voici : trois points. |
| , . | no | Bonjour, comment allez-vous. |
| « » | space inside both | Il a dit : « Bonjour » |
| ( ) [ ] | no space inside | (comme ceci) |
| % € ° | space before the symbol | 50 % · 20 € · 18 °C |
| … | no space before | Enfin… |
Note also: French uses a space or a thin space as the thousands separator and a comma as the decimal point — 1 250,75 € where English writes €1,250.75.
French quotes with « », not with " ". Inside a quotation, a second level uses English double quotes or single ones. And dialogue in literature uses the tiret cadratin rather than quotes at all.
Il m’a répondu : « Je n’en sais rien. »
Dialogue convention:
— Tu viens ?
— Non, je reste.
An interpolated incise inside a quotation takes commas and no extra quotes: « Je viendrai, dit-il, mais plus tard. »
| Category | French | English |
|---|---|---|
| Nationality noun | les Français | the French |
| Nationality adjective | la langue française | the French language |
| Days, months | lundi, janvier | Monday, January |
| Job titles | le ministre de la Justice | the Minister of Justice |
| Book titles | Le Rouge et le Noir | every major word |
| Institutions | l’Assemblée nationale | the National Assembly |
| Religions, languages | le catholicisme, l’anglais | Catholicism, English |
Accents on capitals: keep them. À bientôt, ÉTAT, Île-de-France. The idea that capitals go unaccented is a typewriter-era limitation, and the Académie is explicit that the accent is part of the spelling.
| Mark | What it does in French |
|---|---|
| le point-virgule | joins two balanced, independent clauses that belong together. Used far more than in English and a marker of good style. |
| les deux points | announces: an explanation, a list, a quotation, a consequence. French uses it where English would write because or namely. |
| le tiret cadratin | interrupts, or introduces dialogue. In pairs, it brackets an aside more strongly than commas. |
| les points de suspension | trails off or suggests. Three dots, never four, and no space before. |
| la virgule | never before et in a simple list: du pain, du vin et du fromage. |
Le projet a échoué : personne ne l’avait financé. An English writer would use because. The French colon states the causal relation without naming it, and it is one of the cheapest ways to make your prose read as French rather than as translated English.
| Type | Example | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Homophone | « quelque soit » for quel que soit | see lesson 7 |
| Barbarisme | « ils croivent » for ils croient | a malformed word |
| Solécisme | « la personne que je parle » | a syntax error |
| Pléonasme | « au jour d’aujourd’hui », « monter en haut » | redundancy |
| Impropriété | « achever » for terminer in the wrong sense | a word misused |
| Anglicisme de structure | « je suis supposé partir » | a calqued construction |
| Coquille | « pubic » for public | a typo — the reason you proofread |
Do not proofread once for everything; you will catch nothing.
; : ! ? and check the spaces; check the quotation marks are « »; check capitals and accents.The Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l’Imprimerie nationale is the reference professional French typesetters actually use, and Québec's Banque de dépannage linguistique puts the same rules online for free. Between them they settle every question on this page — including the ones nobody thinks to ask, like how to abbreviate numéro (no, never No.).
Spelling carries unusual social weight in France, where the dictée is a national ritual and the Certificat Voltaire appears on CVs. Adoption of the 1990 reform has been slow and patchy in the press — Le Monde largely keeps traditional spellings — while school textbooks have moved. The Imprimerie nationale's rules are the professional standard for typography.
Québec adopted the 1990 rectifications faster and more thoroughly, so Québécois publications are noticeably more likely to write cout and maitre. Québec typography also diverges slightly under North American pressure: the thin space before ; and ! is sometimes dropped, and the dollar sign follows the number (25 $) where Europe puts the euro after too (25 €) but English Canada puts the dollar first. The OQLF's guidance is the reference.
Write oui or non.
Write majuscule or minuscule for the word in question.
Write 1990 if the form is the rectified one, trad if traditional.
Write barbarisme, pléonasme, solécisme or anglicisme.
1. French writes Vraiment ? with a space because:
2. Which circumflexes survive the 1990 reform?
3. Le projet a échoué : personne ne l’avait financé. The colon here: