Common Anglicisms in Quebec and Their French Equivalents

A marketing email goes out inviting clients to canceller leur meeting avant la deadline, and nobody on the team bats an eye until a client politely points out that the sentence is not in proper French. Common anglicisms slip into Quebec French business writing so naturally that many go unnoticed until someone outside the organization flags them. Knowing which terms are considered anglicisms and which French equivalents to use instead protects both a brand’s image of professionalism and its compliance with Quebec’s language expectations.

The tricky part is that not every anglicism sounds obviously English; some look and sound entirely French while still carrying a borrowed meaning, which makes them far easier to miss during routine review than a word like “email” or “meeting.”

What Common Anglicisms Look Like in Quebec French

An anglicism is a word, expression or grammatical structure borrowed from English and used in French, regardless of if a perfectly good French term for the same idea already exists.

Common anglicisms generally fall into a few recognizable categories: Direct borrowings bring an English word into French unchanged, such as using “email” instead of courriel; calques translate an English expression word for word into a French structure that a native speaker would not normally use, such as ça fait du sens (“that makes sense”) instead of c’est logique; hybrid verbs take an English root and graft it onto a French ending, producing words like canceller or focusser instead of annuler and se concentrer; and syntactic anglicisms borrow English sentence patterns, such as appliquer pour un emploi (“apply for a job”) instead of poser sa candidature, or starting a sentence with définitivement as a stand-alone opener, the way an English speaker might use “definitely.”

Recognizing which category a given anglicism falls into is less important than simply knowing it exists. What matters in practice is building the habit of pausing on a term that feels slightly borrowed and checking whether a more established French equivalent already exists before sending a document out the door.

Common Anglicisms in Business Communication

Certain anglicisms show up so frequently in Quebec workplaces that people have become desensitized to them, even though apt French equivalents exist and are generally preferred in professional writing.

Reference tools such as the OQLF’s Vitrine linguistique maintain an extensive, regularly updated list of these terms alongside their recommended equivalents. The entry on courriel specifically is a useful example of how the tool explains not just the correct term but also the reasoning behind it.

Anglicisms That Often Slip Past a Spell Check

The anglicisms above are relatively easy to spot because the borrowed word looks nothing like standard French. A second, sneakier category causes far more trouble: words that exist in French already, spelled correctly, but that carry a meaning borrowed from their English look-alike.

Définitivement, for example, is a real French word, but it means “permanently” or “once and for all,” not “definitely” in the most common English sense. Opportunité technically exists in French as well, yet occasion or possibilité is usually the more natural choice in everyday professional writing. Réaliser is often used to mean “to realize” in the sense of becoming aware of something, when se rendre compte fits standard Quebec French usage better. Supporter gets used for emotional or logistical support, whereas appuyer or soutenir is generally preferred, since supporter in standard French leans closer to tolerating something unpleasant.

These cases matter precisely because they are invisible to a spell checker and easy for even careful writers to miss, which is why a terminology-focused review is usually advisable.

Why Anglicisms Matter for Businesses in Quebec

Occasional anglicisms in casual conversation rarely raise eyebrows, but professional writing is judged by a different standard. Client-facing documents, marketing content and internal communications that lean heavily on them can come across as careless, even when the underlying message is sound. For businesses already navigating Quebec’s language requirements, using OQLF-recommended terminology consistently also supports broader compliance efforts.

• Anglicism-heavy writing can undermine credibility with clients who expect polished, professional French.
• Inconsistent terminology between departments creates confusion, particularly in technical or regulated industries.
• Businesses working through a francization program are generally expected to use OQLF-recommended vocabulary in official documents.
• Marketing content translated or adapted without attention to anglicisms can feel noticeably out of step with a Quebec audience.

Businesses reviewing their broader language practices, including for Bill 96 compliance, often find that cleaning up common anglicisms is one of the fastest, lowest-cost improvements to make. Unlike a full translation project, correcting terminology across existing documents rarely requires rewriting entire sections of text, since most fixes are a matter of swapping one term for another without changing the surrounding sentence at all. Getting existing content reviewed for Quebec French accuracy usually brings far more of these small issues to the surface than a straightforward internal read-through.

How to Catch and Correct Anglicisms in Your Content

A few practical habits go a long way in keeping these overly English slip-ups out of professional writing without slowing a team down.

• Keep a short internal glossary of frequently used terms and their standard French equivalents, updated as new anglicisms are identified.
• Run client-facing documents through a dedicated review process focused specifically on terminology, separate from a general grammar check.
• Consult the OQLF’s linguistic resources when a term feels questionable rather than defaulting to the English word out of habit.
• Involve a second reviewer for high-visibility content, since a single writer often misses their own habitual anglicisms.

For teams curious about the broader debate around English influence on Quebec French, this article on Franglais in Quebec explores where these borrowings come from and why some are more accepted than others. Businesses adapting content specifically for the Quebec market may also benefit from a dedicated Quebec market adaptation review alongside standard proofreading.

Writing Confidently in Clear, Correct Quebec French

Common anglicisms are easy to overlook precisely because they sound so natural in everyday speech; in professional writing, however, small choices like courriel over email or réunion over meeting cumulatively create a noticeably more polished, credible brand voice, and that polish often registers with clients even when they cannot quite articulate why a document feels more professional. A short glossary, dedicated terminology review and the OQLF’s own resources are usually enough to catch the vast majority of these slip-ups before they ever reach a client’s inbox.

Teams that want a second set of eyes on client-facing content can request a French review before their next major publication or campaign goes out the door.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are common anglicisms and why do they appear so often in Quebec French?

Common anglicisms are English words, expressions or sentence structures borrowed into French, often because they are shorter, more familiar in a bilingual workplace or simply habitual among colleagues who have used them for years. Quebec’s close daily contact with English through media, technology and commerce makes some of them especially pervasive, even when a clear, well-established French equivalent already exists and is generally preferred in professional or client-facing writing.

Are all anglicisms considered incorrect in Quebec French?

Not necessarily. Some borrowed terms have become fully accepted, or “lexicalized,” in everyday Quebec French over time, while others remain discouraged in formal or professional writing. The OQLF distinguishes between terms it actively recommends avoiding and vocabulary that has been naturally integrated into the language over decades, which is why checking documents against a dedicated linguistic resource is far more reliable than guessing based on habit alone.

How can a business identify anglicisms it did not realize it was using?

A dedicated review process focused specifically on terminology catches far more anglicisms than a standard linguistic review ever will. Comparing frequently used internal terms against the OQLF’s recommended vocabulary, or having a second reviewer read through client-facing content with fresh eyes, usually identifies recurring anglicisms that the original writer became desensitized to long ago, particularly the kind that look and sound entirely French on the surface.