English Business Idioms French Speakers Get Wrong in Meetings
You can run a meeting in English. Your grammar is solid, your vocabulary is wide, and then someone says 'let's touch base next week' and you freeze, because base of what? The problem is not your English. The problem is that French gives you no clean equivalent for these idioms, so your brain does one of two things: it either calques straight from French ('I will make the point' when you mean 'touch base' or 'get up to speed') or it avoids the idiom entirely and you sound stiff. French speakers reach for 'faire le point', 'recontacter' and 'l'ordre de grandeur' and translate them word for word, and the result is technically English but socially off. This guide takes the meeting idioms that trip up French speakers the most, gives you the real meaning, a sentence you can actually say tomorrow, and the exact French habit it replaces. Learn these and you stop translating in your head mid-sentence.
- touch baseneutral
- to make brief contact with someone to check on progress, usually without a long discussion e.g. Let's touch base on Friday to see where the budget stands. French speakers calque from 'faire le point' and say 'make the point', which in English means 'argue a position'. There is no base in the French expression, so the idiom feels random and gets avoided.
- ballpark figureneutral
- a rough estimate, not an exact number e.g. I can't give you the final cost yet, but a ballpark figure would be around 40,000 euros. French speakers translate 'un ordre de grandeur' literally as 'an order of magnitude', which sounds like a physics lecture in a budget meeting. The baseball image behind 'ballpark' has no French anchor at all.
- get the ball rollinginformal
- to start an activity or process e.g. Let's get the ball rolling by reviewing last quarter's numbers. French speakers reach for 'lancer la machine' or 'démarrer' and produce 'launch the machine', which sounds industrial and odd, or they just say 'start', losing the idiomatic momentum English wants here.
- on the same pageneutral
- in agreement, sharing the same understanding e.g. Before we email the client, I want to make sure we're all on the same page about the deadline. French speakers calque 'être sur la même longueur d'onde' and say 'on the same wavelength', which exists in English but sounds more about personality than about facts. For agreement on details, English prefers the page, not the wavelength.
- the elephant in the roomneutral
- an obvious problem that everyone is avoiding talking about e.g. Nobody's mentioned it, so let me name the elephant in the room: we're going to miss the launch date. French has 'le sujet qui fâche' or 'le tabou', which are about a sensitive topic rather than a glaringly visible one being ignored. French speakers paraphrase and lose the visual punch, because the elephant image is fully idiomatic in English and not translatable from French.
- circle backinformal
- to return to a topic later, usually after dealing with something else first e.g. Good question, but let's circle back to that once we've finished the timeline. French speakers default to 'revenir sur' and produce 'come back on this point', placing the preposition as French would. English uses 'circle back to', and the spatial 'circle' has no equivalent in 'revenir'.
- get up to speedneutral
- to acquire the information needed to be current on a topic e.g. Marie just joined the team, so give her a day to get up to speed on the contract. French speakers calque 'se mettre au courant' and say 'put yourself in the current', which sounds electrical. Others use 'faire le point' again and land on 'make the point', repeating the same trap from 'touch base'.
- run something by someoneinformal
- to share an idea with someone to get their reaction before acting e.g. Can I run the new pricing by you before I send it to the client? French speakers translate 'soumettre à' as 'submit it to you', which is more formal and bureaucratic than the casual 'run it by you'. French has no idiom using a verb of motion here, so the phrasal verb feels alien.
- table a discussionformal
- in British and corporate English, to set a topic aside for later; note this is a famous false friend e.g. We're short on time, so let's table this and pick it up next week. French speakers see 'table' and think 'mettre sur la table', meaning to bring something out for discussion now, which is the opposite of the common meeting sense of postponing. Note that in American usage 'table' can also lean toward postponing, so the safest fix is to say plainly when you mean later versus now.
Common questions
How do I say 'faire le point' in an English meeting?
It depends on the goal. If you want a quick check-in, say 'touch base'. If you want to get current on a topic, say 'get up to speed'. Never say 'make the point', which means to argue a position.
Is 'on the same wavelength' wrong in English?
It exists and is correct, but it leans toward personalities clicking. For agreeing on facts and details, English speakers say 'on the same page'. French speakers overuse the wavelength version because it calques 'longueur d'onde'.
Does 'table' mean to discuss or to postpone?
In most corporate and British meeting use, 'table a topic' means to set it aside for later. This is the opposite of the French instinct from 'mettre sur la table'. When in doubt, say 'let's come back to this later' to avoid the false friend.
Why do these idioms feel so hard when my grammar is fine?
Because they are fixed images, not grammar. French gives you 'recontacter', 'l'ordre de grandeur' and 'se mettre au courant', and none of them share the picture English uses. You have to learn the whole phrase, not translate the parts.
Sources
- Learner English (Swan & Smith), French chapter, Cambridge University Press.
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