Bilingual Business Writing (EN/FR)

Administrative assistant, executive assistant, NGO project officer, office manager — I write the email, the letter, the minutes and the report that management signs without rewriting it.

You already answer emails, take notes in meetings and draft letters — but you are not sure your French is formal enough, your English is not translated French, or your minutes would hold up if someone challenged them.

What you'll be able to do

• Choose the right register and tone for an email, a letter or a memo, in English and in French
• Write a professional email that gets answered, in both languages, without translating word for word
• Produce a French administrative letter following its own conventions, and its true English equivalent
• Take and write up meeting minutes and a compte rendu that a director signs as read
• Write a memo, a briefing note and a short structured report with clear numbers and a clean recommendation
• Spot the common false friends and translation traps between French and English business writing

How it's built

Grammar and structure content draws on free open resources — the Purdue Online Writing Lab for English business writing, Alison's free business communication courses, and TV5Monde and Projet Voltaire style exercises for formal French. On top of that we teach the exact conventions used in Cameroonian and Central African administration and NGOs — the objet line, the formule de politesse, the compte rendu format an auditor expects — which no international course covers.

What you earn

• Free completion records from the open providers used, in their own name
• An LES Institute certificate covering an assessed bilingual correspondence file

Requirements

• Secondary school completion
• Working knowledge of both French and English, even if imperfect
• A laptop or centre access for the writing exercises