📖LearnModule 13 · Lesson 10 of 30Proficient User · CEFR C2, first halfUnit 2 · Les tournures impersonnelles
Le style administratif
Module 13 of the free French course (CEFR C2, first half), lesson 10 of 30: French officialdom writes in a register of its own. On this page: 8 words with their genders and respellings, the rule, a watch-out line, the conjugation table and the audio — the study notes behind the workbook's lesson 10.
The words
French
English
Say it
veuillez trouver ci-joint
please find enclosed
vuh-yay troo-vay see-ZHWA(n)
sauf erreur de notre part
unless we are mistaken
sohf eh-ruhr duh nohtr PAHR
l'avis d'impositionmasculine — the article elides to l'
the tax notice
lah-vee da(n)-poh-zee-SYOH(n)
le bail
the lease
luh BAHY
administratif
administrative
ahd-mee-nees-trah-TEEF
traduire en clair
to put into plain words
trah-dweer ah(n) KLEHR
ci-dessous
below
see-duh-SOO
sans broncher
without flinching
sah(n) broh(n)-SHAY
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Hear the words
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
La règle · The rule
French officialdom writes in a register of its own, and at C2 you have to read it without flinching. Veuillez trouver ci-joint. Dans l'attente de votre retour. Sauf erreur ou omission de notre part.
Et aussi · And also
You will rarely write it. You will constantly read it — on a lease, a tax notice, a hospital letter — and the single most useful habit is to translate each sentence into plain French before deciding what it asks of you.
Attention · Watch out
veuillez trouver ci-joint is fixed, and ci-joint does not agree before the noun. sauf erreur de notre part means unless we are mistaken — a courtesy, not an admission.
recevoir — the table
je reçois · tu reçois · il/elle reçoit · nous recevons · vous recevez · ils/elles reçoivent
Do it now — on paper
Say all 8 words aloud twice from the respelling, then once from the French spelling alone — begin with veuillez trouver ci-joint.
Copy every word with its accents on paper; then cover the English column and write each meaning back from the French.
Write out recevoir in full from memory, every person, and check each form against the table above.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.