French Lesson Sentence Structure is Chapter 44 of this free set of French lessons for confident conversation in a business setting. You can rapidly learn to impress your French work colleagues when they see how quickly you are improving, and that you are making a strong effort to speak better French with them. Please have a listen to the full audiobook version of these lessons HERE to learn even faster.
“the market share”: « la part de marché »
“The sales department is bonused according to its capture of market share.”
« La direction des ventes est incentivée sur sa capacité à gagner des parts de marché. »
French Lesson Sentence Structure Breakdowns
“to bonus”: « incentiver »
“to bonus” is a new management slang term for “to give a bonus according to”.
The French imitates the English and uses « incentiver » as in « donner un incentive »/« donner une incitation ».
“according to”: « sur »
It’s usually translated as « selon », e.g. “according to my boss, I’m efficient”: « selon/d’après mon patron, je suis efficace ».
But in this case, in this context, we use « sur » because it implies a cause, how your performance is measured.
“its capture”: « sa capacité à gagner »
In this case you have to paraphrase. You have to keep what we call in French « l’esprit plutôt que la lettre », meaning “the spirit instead of the letter”.
It’s like in contracts, the spirit of the content of the sentence is more important than the letter, the actual formulation.
So, a good translation of “its capture” is a paraphrased translation. A bad translation would be a literal translation. « Sa capture » would not mean anything.
“The sales department captures the market share.”
« La direction de ventes a la capacité de gagner des parts de marché. »
French Lesson Quick tip: Articles and how to be fluent in French
We’ve seen that French has more articles.
“Market share” becomes « les parts de marché ».
I use the definite article « les » and I use it in the plural because « parts de marché » is here collective [Note: The audio says “uncountable”], it’s usually used in the plural.
Don’t be afraid to use many articles. Every noun needs an article before it. You better be safe than sorry. If you’re having trouble with your articles and prepositions, for example you can’t remember how to say « sur » or « de », and if you can’t remember the genders, try to break down the longer sentences into 2 or 3 shorter ones.
For example, you could say “All departments are measured according to performance. In the sales department, it’s measured with market share.”
So that would be: « Toutes les directions sont évaluées sur leurs performances. En vente, la performance est évaluée sur la part de marché. »
Don’t get stuck with long sentences. Start slow: when you’re thinking in English you’re thinking about advanced complex sentences with multiple clauses. Stop doing that in French. Start simple with basic sentences, the listener will be more patient because you’re ending your sentences one after the other, and you will be less paralyzed and more fluid.
Here is the full sentence again:
French Lesson Sentence Structure
“The sales department is bonused according to its capture of market share.”
« La direction des ventes est incentivée sur sa capacité à gagner des parts de marché. »
Some of these lessons are a lot to take in, and should be read through many times, over a few sessions. Please bookmark this page and visit again each week. And be sure to read this key lesson HERE as well.
But by far the best thing you can do is to check out the accompanying full audiobook of Hands Free Business french HERE and listen to all of these lessons – ALL of them – in full audio glory for maximum retention
