Translate English to French, whole files at once
Read chapter one in French before you pay. Guillemets and non-breaking spaces follow French rules, tu and vous follow each relationship, and place names get one French form.
Source · English, detected
On the morning the ferries stopped, Mara Ellison walked the length of the Lantern Quay and counted the boats that would not leave. Eleven.
Preview
FreeLe matin où les ferries cessèrent de partir, Mara Ellison parcourut le quai des Lanternes d’un bout à l’autre et compta les bateaux qui ne quitteraient pas le port. Onze.
- 31 names and places in the glossary
- Layout kept
- 24 chapters
At a glance. English to French
- $22.50 for a 90,000-word novel
- Chapter one is free
- France, Canada, Belgium, or Switzerland
- Chapters, footnotes, images and styles
One glossary for the whole file. Names read the same in French on every page.
Pick a name to find it in both versions.
On the morning the ferries stopped, Mara Ellison walked the length of the Lantern Quay and counted the boats that would not leave. Eleven. Somewhere behind the fog, the Tidewardens were counting too.
Le matin où les ferries cessèrent de partir, Mara Ellison parcourut le quai des Lanternes d’un bout à l’autre et compta les bateaux qui ne quitteraient pas le port. Onze. Quelque part derrière le brouillard, les Gardiens des marées comptaient aussi.
French takes 11% more characters than English. Measured on our sample.
| Measure | English | French |
|---|---|---|
| Words | 84 | 93 |
| Characters, without spaces | 388 | 432 |
At the same ratio, a 92,400-word English book comes out at about 102,300 words in French.
You pay for the words of the English original, not for the length of the translation.
What changes in French. Handled for you, adjustable before you pay.
- Tu and vous follow your style setting, including the moment two characters switch.
- Typography follows French rules: guillemets, non-breaking spaces before colons and question marks.
- Narration can use the passé simple for literary fiction or the passé composé for a modern voice.
What a book costs. Pick an example or set your word count.
Free preview: chapter one. No account or card needed.
Questions. Short answers.
How much does it cost to translate a book from English to French?
A one-off translation costs $0.25 per 1,000 words for reading or $0.60 with glossary, style guide and review. A 90,000-word novel is $54 in Publish mode. You see the exact price before paying.
Will names stay the same in the French translation?
Yes. The whole file is read first and every person, place and invented word gets one French form. You can change any of them before translation starts.
Passé simple or passé composé?
Say which you prefer in the notes for the translator. Literary fiction usually reads best in the passé simple, a modern first-person voice in the passé composé.
Is French typography handled?
Yes. Guillemets replace English quotation marks, and a non-breaking space goes before colons, semicolons, question and exclamation marks, so lines never break in the wrong place.
More language pairs. Same file, other languages.
Every format you work with. Layout kept in each one.
English to French translation for books that read as if written in French
French typography is the first test
French readers expect guillemets around speech, with a thin space inside them. A non-breaking space goes before colons, semicolons, question marks and exclamation marks. Get these wrong and the book looks foreign before anyone has read a sentence.
These rules are applied across the whole file, including the table of contents and footnotes. There is nothing to set.
Read the full guideHide the guide
Passé simple or passé composé
This is the question French editors ask first. Literary fiction in the third person is usually narrated in the passé simple: elle marcha, il compta. A modern first-person voice often uses the passé composé: j’ai marché, j’ai compté. Both are correct, and they make the book feel a different age.
Write your preference in Notes for the translator. Our sample, The Harbour Ledger, reads well in the passé simple, so the preview uses it: Mara Ellison parcourut le quai des Lanternes.
Tu and vous, and the moment they switch
In French novels the move from vous to tu is often a scene in itself. Set the address to Decide per relationship and the translation keeps vous between strangers until the story brings them closer. If your book should keep one form throughout, choose informal or formal instead.
Place names: French forms or English atmosphere
Invented places get a French form by default. Lantern Quay becomes le quai des Lanternes, with a lowercase quai as French usage wants. If you prefer the English name for atmosphere, switch the term to Keep in the glossary and it stays English in every chapter.
Cost and plan for a French edition
Translating 92,400 words costs $23.10 in Read mode and $55.44 in Publish mode. Publish includes the glossary you can edit, the style guide and review notes. If you plan French and one more language, Pro at $29 a month includes 200,000 words, which covers two books of this length in a single month.
French for France, Canada, Belgium or Switzerland
The variant setting offers four French markets. Readers in Quebec expect courriel for email and fin de semaine for the weekend. Belgian and Swiss readers count septante and nonante where France says soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix. Pick the market once, and numbers written as words follow it too.
Before you pay
Read the free chapter for rhythm. French sentences run longer, and a translation that copies English sentence breaks feels choppy. If it does, add a line to the translator notes, for example: join short sentences where French would. Then run chapter one again; three reruns are free.