French for Logistics & Operations

French for Logistics and Operations

You already know supply chain. You know what a delayed shipment costs, what a stockout does to a line, how a good transporteur saves your week. What you need is to do all of that in French, with suppliers, carriers, warehouse teams and colleagues who expect you to keep up. That is exactly what this course gives you.

I am Xavier, a native French teacher from Nantes. Before teaching full time I worked in logistics and operations myself, so I am not going to hand you tourist phrases and hope for the best. We work with the real language of the sector: the emails that actually land in your inbox, the calls where the line is bad and the deadline is worse, the documents you have to sign off without a mistake. Over 12 focused one-to-one sessions, we turn your solid French into working French for the job.

Who this is for

This course is built for professionals already working in supply chain, transport, production, procurement or operations who need French for their day-to-day role. It sits at CEFR B2, so you should already handle French conversation with reasonable confidence and want to specialise, sharpen and sound credible in a professional setting. If you can follow a general discussion but freeze when the vocabulary turns technical or the register turns formal, you are in the right place.

It suits, for example: a logistics coordinator joining a French-speaking team, an operations manager dealing with French suppliers or plants, a freight forwarder handling French carriers, a procurement or planning professional preparing for a move to a francophone market, or an engineer on a production site who needs to run and understand the floor in French.

How the course works

Everything is one-to-one and online, so the whole thing bends to your reality. Tell me you work mostly in road freight and warehousing, and we lean there. Tell me your pain is meetings and phone calls, not documents, and we rebalance. The 12-session structure below is the backbone, and it is a real, full programme, but your context (your company, your incoterms, your commodities) gets woven in from session one.

The programme: 12 sessions of 60 minutes

1. Session 1 – Diagnostic and the map of the supply chain. We start by finding your real level in a professional context, not a textbook one. Then we build the vocabulary spine of the whole chain in French: fournisseur, approvisionnement, chaîne logistique, flux amont et aval, distribution, client final. You leave able to describe your own role and your company’s flow in clear French.
2. Session 2 – Warehousing and stock. The warehouse in French, end to end: l’entrepôt, la réception, le picking (la préparation de commande), le stockage, l’expédition, l’inventaire. Stock language that matters: rupture de stock, stock de sécurité, réapprovisionnement, la rotation des stocks, le taux de service. We practise describing a stock problem and asking for its cause.
3. Session 3 – Transport modes and the vocabulary of freight. Road, rail, sea and air in French: le transport routier, le fret maritime, le transport aérien, le transporteur, l’affréteur, le chauffeur. Units and equipment: la palette, le conteneur, le camion, la remorque, le poids lourd. You learn to talk delays, capacity and routing.
4. Session 4 – Incoterms and international trade. Incoterms are half English acronym, half French practice. We cover how francophone partners actually use EXW, FCA, FOB, CIF, DAP, DDP, plus the surrounding language of responsibility and risk: les frais de transport, le dédouanement, l’assurance, le transfert de risque, les droits de douane. You leave able to negotiate and confirm terms without ambiguity.
5. Session 5 – Reading real documents, part one. We open genuine sector documents and decode them together: le bon de commande, le bon de livraison, la facture, le devis. We look at layout, standard phrasing and the traps, and you practise checking a document and flagging an error politely but firmly.
6. Session 6 – Reading real documents, part two: transport and customs. The heavier paperwork: la lettre de voiture (CMR), le connaissement (bill of lading), la déclaration en douane, le bordereau. We work through a shipping file and the abbreviations that never appear in dictionaries. You build a personal glossary you keep for good.
7. Session 7 – Professional email in the sector. The written register of the French workplace, applied to your job: opening and closing formulas, the right level of formality, chasing a late delivery, answering a complaint, confirming an order. We draft real emails from your own situations and I edit them live with you.
8. Session 8 – Phone calls and the difficult conversation. The call is where confidence breaks, so we drill it: taking and passing on information, spelling and numbers (épeler, les références), asking someone to repeat, confirming what was agreed. We role-play chasing a carrier, reporting a problem and handling a supplier who is defensive.
9. Session 9 – Production and operations on site. The language of the plant and the floor: la ligne de production, la cadence, le rendement, la maintenance, la panne, le contrôle qualité, le taux de rebut. Lean and continuous-improvement vocabulary as it is spoken in France (l’amélioration continue, le gaspillage, le goulot d’étranglement). You practise reporting status and escalating an issue.
10. Session 10 – Meetings: taking part and holding your own. How to intervene in a French professional meeting without waiting for a gap that never comes: agreeing, disagreeing diplomatically, proposing, summarising, pushing back on a plan. We simulate an operations review and a supplier meeting, and work on the exact phrases that buy you time to think.
11. Session 11 – Numbers, KPIs and reporting. Talking figures fluently: percentages, variations, trends, dates and deadlines, currencies and quantities out loud. KPI language: le taux de service, le délai de livraison, le coût logistique, la performance fournisseur. You learn to present a result, explain a gap and commit to an action.
12. Session 12 – Putting it together and your plan. A full scenario that runs a problem from email to call to meeting to document, using your own sector context. We review your personal glossary, pin down the last weak spots, and I give you an honest, specific written assessment plus a plan for keeping the French alive after the course.

Resources and materials we use

• Real, graded sector documents. Authentic French purchase orders, delivery notes, CMR waybills, customs declarations and invoices, chosen and lightly graded so they stretch you without drowning you.
• Audio for the ear. Recordings of professional exchanges and phone calls, including realistic imperfect audio, because a real warehouse line is never studio-clean.
• Targeted worksheets. Vocabulary and grammar sheets built around each session’s topic, with the sector words drilled in context rather than as flat lists.
• A shared living study document. One document we both write in throughout the course: your personal glossary, corrected emails, useful phrases and notes. It is yours to keep and use at work the day the course ends.
• Homework between sessions. Short, practical tasks tied to your real job: draft this email, prepare this call, decode this document. Small enough to actually do, useful enough to be worth it.
• Your own material welcome. Bring a real (non-confidential) email, document or situation you are stuck on, and we work on it directly. This is often where the biggest progress happens.

What you will be able to do by the end

These are can-do outcomes anchored to CEFR B2, made concrete for the sector:

• Describe your role, your company and your supply chain flow clearly and precisely in French.
• Understand and check real sector documents (orders, delivery notes, waybills, invoices, customs paperwork) and flag errors correctly.
• Write professional emails in the right register: chasing, confirming, complaining and responding, without awkward or wrong formulas.
• Handle work phone calls with confidence, including numbers, references and spelling, and confirm what was agreed.
• Take an active part in a meeting or operations review: propose, agree, disagree diplomatically and summarise.
• Negotiate and confirm transport and incoterm details without ambiguity about cost, risk and responsibility.
• Talk about production and operations on site: status, breakdowns, quality, performance and improvement.
• Present figures and KPIs out loud, explain a variance and commit to an action.

What is included

• 12 one-to-one online sessions of 60 minutes, fully tailored to your sector and your goals.
• All learning materials: graded documents, audio, worksheets and the shared study document.
• Practical homework between sessions, corrected and reviewed with you.
• Support between lessons for short questions (a phrase you need before a real call or email counts).
• Session recordings on request, so you can review a role-play or an explanation later.
• An honest written assessment at the end, with a concrete plan to keep improving.

An honest word before you book

This is not a magic course and I will not pretend it is. It works because you already know your field and you already have solid French, so we are not building from zero, we are converting what you have into confidence at work. Come with your real situations, do the short homework, and by session 12 the French side of your job stops being the hard part. If that is what you need, I would be glad to work with you.

Price: 399 euros for the full 12-session programme.