Text of the video to learn French expressions related to work

Do you have a minute to help me? I shouldn't have done the bridge. I'm underwater now.

You may think I've just told you a very complicated riddle. Not at all.

I used expressions that are very frequently used at work in France.

If you work in French, if you have to speak in French with colleagues or clients, it is very important to know these expressions.

Hi, this is Elisabeth from the HelloFrench channel. Today, we're going to look at ten essential expressions to know when communicating at work and we'll see as a bonus five acronyms very often used at work in France.

You have a minute. "You have a minute" is a very polite expression when you disturb someone in a task while they are working to ask them for something.

Even more polite is "would you have a minute?" because you are using the conditional tense. Would you have a minute to give me your opinion on this matter? Of course, if you're being polite to the person, you should say "would you have a minute?"

First thing in the morning. When someone asks you for something and you don't have time to do it right away, you can tell that person that you will do it first thing tomorrow.

That means it will be the first task you do the next day. I don't have time to do it now, but I will do it first thing tomorrow.

Put in the loop. This means either being copied on an email or being informed of the different stages of a project. You want to be kept up to date on the progress of a project, or you want to keep track of an issue. Can you put me in the loop on organizing the staff party?

Of course, you can change the pronoun in the middle of the sentence. The boss wants you to put it in the loop for this case.

Being on leave. Being on leave simply means that you are "out of office". You are on vacation or not working at the moment. I'm on leave, I'll be back on February 13th.

Take the afternoon off or take the morning off. It means that you take time off, but only for half a day. If I take the morning off, I don't come to work in the morning. If I take the afternoon off, I don't come to work in the afternoon. I took the afternoon off to take my daughter to the doctor.

To make the bridge. This expression, it may seem very strange. A bridge is a structure that connects one piece of land to another, because there is a river in the middle. In the professional context, it is used to talk about a day off that we will take between a holiday and the weekend. Do you do the Ascension Day bridge? Yes, I took Friday off.

Being on the road or being on a business trip. It's being on a business trip. It means that you have meetings or appointments in another city than the one where you usually work. I'm not in the office today, I'm on a business trip to Bordeaux.

Being underwater. We use it to say that we have work over our heads. The workload is very heavy. My colleague is on vacation. I have to do her work. I am underwater.

Gaining skills. It means becoming better at what you do, having more skills. I'm going to take a management course to become more skilled.

Like a Monday. When you start the week and you just want to bitch, you're not happy that you're not on the weekend anymore when people ask you how you're doing, you can answer like a Monday.

And let's finish with our bonus of five acronyms that are very often used in the French work world.

A CDD. This is a fixed-term contract. It means that your work contract has a duration. It can be six months, one year, three years.

We also have the permanent contract. This is an open-ended contract, which means that the employer cannot stop your contract, that you can stay in this company for the rest of your life if you wish. There is no end to your contract.

The SMIC. When we talk about the SMIC in France, we talk about the minimum wage. It is a word that comes up very often in the news. Today the SMIC in France, the minimum wage, is equivalent to more or less 1300 €.

RTT. These are leaves that you will have in addition to the legal leaves. The number of RTT will be negotiated by the agreements of your company for example, or they will be determined by the number of overtime hours that are provided for in your employment contract.

And finally, the last acronym is N+ or N-. When I talk about my N+1, it's my direct boss, it's my manager. My N+2 is my manager's manager, so it's my big boss.

And similarly, on the other hand, my N-1 is the person I manage.

The video is over for today, I hope you enjoyed it.

If you do, of course, put a "like" on it.

See you soon for a new French video.