How I've Helped Professionals Speak French
in Real Work Situations
This article is regularly updated with new real-life professional situations.
Last update: August 20, 2026
New case study added: Helping a Documentary Filmmaker Prepare for an Interview with Her Protagonist
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Since I started helping professionals improve their professional French, I’ve discovered that every client faces different communication challenges at work.
Some need to prepare for a job interview in French. Others have to present products to customers, lead team meetings, write strategic emails or get ready for an important business trip in a French-speaking country.
Although every situation is unique, most of my clients have two things in common: they usually have an urgent deadline, and they often don’t know where to turn because they are the only person in their company facing that challenge.
This article brings together real professional situations I’ve helped my clients prepare for. It will be updated regularly as I continue supporting professionals working in French-speaking environments.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Case Study: Preparing a Data Analyst for a Job Interview in French in Switzerland
- Case Study: Preparing a VP Engineering for a French Job Interview
- Case Study: Helping a Documentary Filmmaker Prepare for an Interview with Her Protagonist
- Case Study: Helping a Key Account Manager Prepare for a French Trade Exhibition
Job Interviews in French
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More and more expats want to relocate to French-speaking countries, to have a new international experience or to find a better job than in their own countries.
But they quickly face the reality, because bringing precious skills and speaking only English is not enough:
- Professional French is required.
Case Study: Preparing a Data Analyst for a Job Interview in French in Switzerland
The situation:
My client already lives in the French-speaking part of Switzerland and works as a data analyst for an international company.
As an expat from Ecuador, she is a native Spanish speaker and already speaks French, but she rarely uses it at work, as English is the main working language.
She has a strong IT background and professional experience in several countries. She decided it was time to start applying for new opportunities.
The challenge:
She contacted me with an urgent request:
- She had a job interview in French coming up in five days.
- We had very little time to prepare for the interview, so we had to be very efficient.
For this interview, we identified two main areas to prepare:
- Presenting the most relevant experience from her resume.
- Answering technical questions related to the position.
Here is how we used our limited preparation time:
- Before our first session, my client sent me the job offer and her resume. This allowed me to study the position, identify the relevant technical vocabulary, and understand which parts of her professional experience were most relevant to the role.
- We first reviewed her resume and selected the most relevant projects to present in French.
- We began each session by practicing how she presented her professional experience: her current role, projects relevant to the position, and previous projects that demonstrated the technical and soft skills required for the job.
- Between sessions, I prepared technical questions based on the position, which we practiced after working on her presentation.
- We also worked on technical French vocabulary related to data analysis.
- I also helped her adapt the way she communicated in an interview context, taking into account both her international background and the expectations of a professional environment in French-speaking Switzerland.
Because we had only a few sessions, I had to prioritize the questions and situations that were most relevant to her upcoming interview.
Every session was tailored to her specific situation and the requirements of the position.
The result:
The preparation gave her the confidence to go through several job interviews in French, and recruiters told her that her French level was sufficient for the position.
She also appreciated my IT background, which made her feel more comfortable practicing French with someone who understood the technical context of the position.
The goal was not simply to improve her French.
It was to help her use the French she already knew more confidently, naturally, and effectively in a professional interview.
Case Study: Preparing a VP Engineering for a French Job Interview
The situation:
When I started working as a French teacher, I had the chance to be contacted by interesting and diverse profiles.
On of my first professional requests came from a very highly qualified professional profile from Germany:
- VP Engineering and Technology of a large pharmaceutical site.
The challenge:
His objective was:
- Preparing for an interview in an French-speaking company for a similar job.
What a challenge! As a former engineer in Electronics and Computer Science, I had the background to help him, but I never worked in the pharmaceutical industry.
My client had already studied French for many years, so his French was fluent.
So his request was specific:
- He hadn’t practiced French for a while, so he needed to refresh it.
- He needed to practice the presentation of his resume in French.
As he had managed engineering and technical projects, he needed a French teacher who:
- Knows the technical vocabulary.
- Had already worked in French-speaking industries.
How we prepared:
During our sessions, he practiced his presentation many times so that it becomes fluid, while I corrected the small details in French and shared them with him through a Google Doc.
As the sessions were intense, so we switched to more casual conversations as a break, and we continued correcting the small mistakes in French at the same time.
Business Trips in French
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Most of my clients working in international companies come to me with urgent requests and tight deadlines:
- Visiting customers or attending the booth at a big exhibition in a French-speaking country.
They mostly already speak French, but haven’t practiced it for a while.
As they are sometimes the only French-speaking one in the whole company, they are obviously chosen if there is an opportunity with French-speaking customers.
Case Study: Helping a Documentary Filmmaker Prepare for an Interview with Her Protagonist
The challenge:
Therese is a documentary filmmaker from Austria who was preparing a trip to Namibia to interview a French biologist for a documentary about an unusual subject:
- The life of brown hyenas in Namibia.
But this time, she faced a major challenge:
- She had to interview the protagonist in French.
Therese had studied French before and already had a good level, but she hadn’t used it for a long time.
So she contacted me to explain the context and her specific needs:
- Practicing the interview using both prepared and improvised questions.
The situation was quite challenging:
- I had no prior knowledge of the documentary’s subject, and we only had one month and ten sessions to prepare for the interview.
Moreover, Therese had to explain to me how she wanted to conduct the interview:
- She wanted the protagonist to express her feelings, so we worked on more spontaneous questions that could encourage her to share her emotions.
- Some of the main questions would ask her to describe specific situations involving the hyenas.
These requirements were important because the documentary needed to tell a compelling story to its audience.
During each session, I adapted to the way Therese works as a documentary filmmaker while focusing on simulating realistic conversations with her protagonist, so that she could practice and improve her French.
An interesting exercice:
During one session, Therese asked me specific questions about my own life in Thailand, why I came here, and what difficulties I might face as a freelancer.
I accepted the challenge, and this unusual session gave her an opportunity to practice asking improvised questions and encouraging emotional responses, one of her main requirements for the documentary.
This exercise helped her to be more comfortable to improvise questions that she could use with her protagonist.
At the end of the sessions:
Therese had a lot to handle before traveling to Namibia, so my goal was to help her feel more comfortable speaking French.
I felt happy that after ten sessions she felt more confidence speaking French.
I will update this case study once the documentary is completed.
Case Study: Helping a Key Account Manager Prepare for a French Trade Exhibition
The situation:
This time, I had a new request and faced a new challenge:
- Help a German Key Account Manager present the products at a professional exhibition in Paris, France.
The challenge was quite original, as the products to promote were healthy food for animals.
But the main challenge was not the products I wasn’t familiar with:
- It was the deadline.
The challenge:
We didn’t have much time and I had to help her efficiently to be ready to present the products at the booth.
I already had experience in attending a booth for an international company in Belgium, where I had to present the GIS products in English and French.
As a native French speaker, I just had a bad experience during a pre-sales presentation in English with the same company, I wish I was helped with English before the presentation.
So I knew perfectly how my client felt before this important business trip, as I had felt the same in Belgium.
How we prepared:
Here is what I did to help her efficiently:
- Studying the products from the website and summarizing them in French, to have a clear presentation at the booth.
- Helping my client practice a clear presentation in French.
- Practicing specific questions about the products.
- Preparing all the French phrases to welcome visitors at the booth (coffee, sitting at the booth etc).
Team Meetings in French
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Some of my clients are expats in international companies where two or three main languages can be spoken:
- The international language (English).
- The official languages of the country where the offices are.
- The official languages of the company’s home country.
As international companies are growing while hiring both locals and expats, some jobs as team leaders can evolve over time, especially when it comes to speaking multiple languages.
Case Study: Helping an International Professional Communicate with French-Speaking Colleagues
The situation:
Every professional situation is different, and every person who contacts me has specific goals.
My client is from Argentina and works for an international NGO in Valencia, Spain. When she started working on projects involving the French office, she realized she needed to communicate in French with colleagues based in Paris, both remotely and on-site.
And the next challenge would be working on projects with French-speaking clients in different French-speaking countries (France, Belgium and Morocco).
The challenge:
- She had only started learning French recently.
But she was very motivated, and I was impressed by the way she had already started learning French by herself.
When we started the sessions, I noticed that she could already handle very basic conversations.
As Spanish and French are both part of the Romance language family, this gave her a useful advantage.
However, speaking French in front of her colleagues was still a major challenge.
How we prepared:
As she didn’t have an immediate deadline for meetings with French-speaking clients, we had time to gradually build her confidence:
- We started by learning the key expressions she needed to introduce herself.
- Then we simulated simple French conversations she could use during coffee breaks with her colleagues. As the atmosphere at work was friendly, we started with light topics such as music and everyday conversations.
- We gradually moved towards more work-related conversations, so that she could begin talking about work with her colleagues.
Between the lessons, I prepared conversations based on the topics and work situations she wanted to practice.
I always finished the lessons by giving her a small challenge:
- Practicing what we had worked on through real French conversations at the coffee machine with her colleagues.
Those everyday conversations became the foundation for preparing future meetings and projects with French-speaking clients.
Case Study: Being Leader Of Bilingual Teams in Switzerland
The situation:
My client is from the Philippines and already speaks English as well.
She’s a team leader of a big Sports company in the French-speaking Switzerland, and usually speaks English with her team.
As a leader, she organizes team meetings, but she quickly noticed something:
- French-speaking employees who are part of her team are more comfortable speaking French between themselves.
- She feels that she lacks connection every time she speaks English with them.
So the problem observed here is cultural, if she wants to communicate better with the French-speaking part of the team:
- She needs to speak a professional French and learn more about the local cultural codes of the company.
She has always expressed herself in English, but she feels that it’s time to speak more French at work.
She has already studied French, she can have a daily conversation, she has a high level of French and she’s been living for several years in Switzerland.
The challenge:
She already has very good French skills, so what blocks her from speaking French naturally within the company?
The main reason is confidence.
Speaking French in a professional context is a bigger challenge than speaking in a daily life:
- Because our work can depend on our language skills.
- Because we can feel that locals can judge our work and skills based on our language skills. And this feeling becomes even stronger if the locals are part of the team we manage.
The objective for my client was simple:
- Gain confidence to manage team meetings in French.
How we worked:
Here is how I helped her step by step:
- We first practiced French while talking about her job position, the organization of her team, and the colleagues she usually talked to.
- After knowing more about the company, I encouraged her to practice French with French-speaking colleagues outside of her team.
- When she felt more confident, I asked her to have short conversations with French-speaking members of the team, starting by questions prepared beforehand.
- Then when an online team meeting was planned, I suggested starting with a short introduction if the topic was not too difficult to manage in French.
She followed the steps:
- She had lunch a couple of times with a French colleague, and at the same time it was a good opportunity for her to know more about the French culture through her colleague.
- She found excuses to ask short questions in French to some of the team members she was comfortable to talk to.
- When an online meeting was planned, she began with French and simple sentences to start the meeting.
The result:
My client gained confidence over time and contacted me for further professional requests, such as writing a strategic email to her manager.
Professional Presentations in French
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As an expat or an independent professional working on challenging projects, you may sometimes need to deliver a presentation in French at short notice to clients or suppliers.
I help my clients prepare by practising their presentations and engaging in realistic professional conversations in French, so they can communicate with confidence during meetings.
Case Study: Helping a Freelance IT Project Manager Communicate a Complex Project in French
The situation:
I was contacted by a freelance IT project manager who had two specific requests for upcoming online meetings:
- Introducing himself in French by talking about his professional background and his role in the project.
- Leading technical discussions in French throughout the different phases of the project.
The first request was urgent because the first online meeting with the client and the suppliers was approaching, so he needed to practice his introduction.
His French was already very good, but he hadn’t used it professionally for a while, so he needed to regain confidence.
Moreover, he was managing a large-scale IT project with a significant budget in the transport sector, so I could feel the pressure he was under. He really needed to be ready for the upcoming meetings.
How we prepared:
I suggested keeping the introduction simple:
- Starting with his name, where he came from, followed by his role in the project.
- Briefly mentioning a similar project he had previously worked on to highlight his experience.
- Ending with a sentence expressing his enthusiasm about being part of the project.
We also refined some technical vocabulary and French expressions, helping him make a positive first impression on both the client and the suppliers.
The second part of our work was more challenging because it involved much more improvisation than the first meeting:
- He first explained the different phases of the project to me using his detailed Excel spreadsheets.
- We worked on the technical vocabulary he would need during the meetings.
- We also reviewed essential Excel vocabulary in French.
As our conversations progressed, we naturally moved beyond language practice and started discussing the project’s biggest technical and operational challenges in French.
I challenged him by asking technical questions about each phase of the project.
The result:
In the end, I was able to help by bringing an outside perspective to the project.
I really appreciated the trust he placed in me by openly discussing the challenges the project could face.
Having a French teacher with an IT background also made a real difference. Beyond language, we were able to have meaningful professional conversations about the project’s challenges, making our practice sessions as realistic as possible.
Do you have an urgent request where you have to speak French in a professional context?
Do you need to practice your professional French for a job interview, a business trip, or a meeting?
Book your Professional French Assessment to prepare your next work situation in French.
I will assess your professional French and help you understand the local workplace cultural codes, and together we will define clear objectives for your upcoming challenge.