Translate English to French

Free English to French translator with the register set first — tu or vous — and names kept exactly as you wrote them.

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Type, paste or upload a document. The source language is detected automatically. Select a name or term and tap Keep to leave it untranslated.

Your translation will appear hereChoose the target language, add your text, then press Translate. Click any sentence in the translation for alternatives.

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English to French translator

English to French translation with the register set first

Paste English and get French back with the register already decided: tu for people you know, vous for everyone else. Most translators make that choice for you and do not mention it. This one asks first, because in French it changes the grammar of every sentence, and a translation that gets it wrong is fluent and still wrong.

How to translate English to French

Three steps. The second is the one most translators skip.

Paste or upload the English

Type, paste or drop in a document. English is already selected as the source on this page; if the text turns out to be something else, the detector says so above the editor and you can change it.

Set the register and mark the names to keep

Pick vous or tu from the register selector beside the language names, or leave it on Match source tone to follow the English. Select any name, brand or product term in the text and press Keep so it is not translated.

Translate, then check it

Read the French if you can. If you cannot, back-translate it: run the result through French to English and compare the meaning, sentence by sentence, with what you started from.

What changes between English and French

The differences that decide whether a translation reads as written by a person.

Script and directionEnglish is written in Latin; French in Latin.
Word orderEnglish is subject-verb-object; French is subject-verb-object. The orders match, which removes one whole class of error, but idiom and agreement still have to be handled.
How politeness is markedFrench uses 'tu' with friends, family and children and 'vous' with everyone else and with any group. Written French to a stranger is 'vous' by default, and moving to 'tu' is a decision people make explicitly.
Formality in EnglishEnglish has no separate polite and familiar 'you'. Register lives in vocabulary and sentence shape instead: 'Could you let me know' against 'Tell me', 'purchase' against 'buy'.

Where translation into French goes wrong

Three things French readers notice at once, and a machine has to be told about.

Vous is polite and plural

'Vous' is both polite-singular and plural, so a translation that has to address one reader politely and several readers uses the same word, and the verb agreement must match.

Letter-closing formulas

French written correspondence has fixed closing formulas ('Je vous prie d'agréer…') that have no English equivalent and are expected in formal letters.

Accents change meaning

Accents change meaning ('a' and 'à', 'ou' and 'où'); dropped accents look careless in French even though English keyboards make them awkward.

What has to be read correctly in the English first

Errors that start on the source side, before a single French word is chosen.

'You' is ambiguous

'You' is ambiguous: one person or several, a friend or a stranger. Translators guess, and a guess in the wrong direction is the single most common way an English original lands badly.

Stacked nouns

English piles up nouns ('customer data retention policy'); most languages need those unpacked into phrases, and a literal rendering is unreadable.

Phrasal verbs and idioms

Phrasal verbs ('put up with', 'look into') and idioms are translated word by word by weaker systems.

Who translates English to French here

Formal letters and emails to French institutions and employers.

French coursework and reading.

Conversations with French-speaking colleagues in Europe, Canada and West Africa.

Going the other way? Translate French to English.

English to French translator FAQs

Is the English to French translator free?

Yes. Translate English to French without an account, within the per-run word allowance shown beside the editor. Signing in raises it, and Pro removes the guest limits and the ads. The pricing page lists what each plan includes.

Should I translate into French as vous or tu?

French uses 'tu' with friends, family and children and 'vous' with everyone else and with any group. Written French to a stranger is 'vous' by default, and moving to 'tu' is a decision people make explicitly. Use tu for friends, family and people who have used it with you; use vous for customers, officials, employers and anyone you have not met. The register selector sets this before the translation is made, so the grammar comes out right the first time rather than being patched afterwards.

Will it translate names, brands and product terms?

Not unless you want it to. Select a name or a term in the editor and press Keep, and it is passed through exactly as written. This matters for English to French because a brand name can look like an ordinary word and get 'translated' into one.

How accurate is machine translation from English to French?

Good enough to understand a document, answer an email or draft a reply, and it improves when you set the register and mark the names as kept first. It is not a substitute for a human translator on a contract, a medical document or anything with legal weight. The reliable way to check a translation you cannot read is to back-translate it: paste the French result into a new run set to English and see whether the meaning survived.

Can I translate a whole document from English to French?

Yes. Drop in a .docx, .pdf or .txt file, or paste the text; the output keeps the paragraph structure and can be copied, edited in place or exported.

Can I translate French to English as well?

Yes. Use the French to English translator, or press the swap button between the two language names on this page. Either way the register and the kept terms come with you.

After the translation

Check the English before you translate it, or shift the register of the result once it is in French. One plan covers every tool.

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Popular language translations

Each pair opens the translator with both languages already set. The register and the Keep button work the same on every one.