Formal written French — administrative letters, business correspondence, academic essays, official reports — systematically prefers abstract nouns over verbs and impersonal or passive constructions over a visible first-person subject. This is not a stylistic accident; it is a structural expectation that a fluent reader of formal French unconsciously checks for, and its absence is what makes a native French reader instantly peg a piece of writing as translated-from-English, casual, or unpolished, even when every individual sentence is grammatically correct.
Nominalization means converting a verb (or an adjective) into its corresponding abstract noun and restructuring the sentence around that noun. Instead of writing 'nous avons décidé d'augmenter les prix parce que les coûts ont augmenté' (a chain of verbs, which reads as direct and almost conversational), formal register favors 'la décision d'augmenter les prix résulte de la hausse des coûts' (decision, increase — nouns doing the structural work, with the verbs reduced to a single linking résulte de). Common nominalizing suffixes to build actively: -tion/-sion (décider → décision, augmenter → augmentation, réduire → réduction), -ment (développer → développement, changer → changement), -ance/-ence (résister → résistance, exister → existence), and -age (bloquer → blocage). Once you have the noun, formal French likes to chain it into a longer, single sentence using de, par, and relative constructions rather than restarting with a new subject and verb — this is why formal writing tends to produce noticeably longer sentences than spoken French, which prefers short independent clauses linked loosely by et, donc, alors.
The second and related habit is avoiding je as the grammatical subject wherever the content allows it, replacing it with impersonal or passive alternatives. Instead of 'je vous informe que votre demande a été acceptée,' formal correspondence often prefers 'il est porté à votre connaissance que votre demande a été acceptée' or simply the passive 'votre demande a été acceptée,' letting the outcome — not the writer — occupy the subject position. Common impersonal frames include il convient de + infinitive (it is fitting to / one should), il importe de (it matters to), il y a lieu de (there is reason to), and il apparaît que (it appears that) — all of which push the human agent out of subject position and replace it with an impersonal il that carries no real referent. The passive voice (être + past participle) serves the same depersonalizing function for actions: la décision a été prise (the decision was made) rather than 'j'ai décidé' or even 'nous avons décidé.' On (used impersonally, roughly 'one') is generally AVOIDED in the most formal registers because it can read as vague or even slightly familiar — the passive or il + impersonal verb is preferred when the goal is maximal formality, even though on is grammatically available and used in more neutral registers.
The effect of combining nominalization with depersonalization is a register where the writer's presence recedes and the content — decisions, facts, procedures — appears to state itself. This is why a formal résignation letter says 'la présente lettre a pour objet de vous informer de ma décision de démissionner de mon poste' rather than 'je veux vous dire que je démissionne': the second sounds perfectly correct but reads as blunt and under-formal for the genre, precisely because it keeps je as the active subject of a plain verb instead of routing the content through the abstract noun décision and the impersonal frame la présente lettre a pour objet de.
Exemples
La présente lettre a pour objet de vous informer de ma décision de quitter mes fonctions.
This letter is to inform you of my decision to leave my position.
nominalized décision instead of 'je décide de partir'; impersonal frame 'la présente lettre a pour objet'
Il convient de souligner que cette hausse résulte directement de l'augmentation des coûts de production.
It should be noted that this increase results directly from the rise in production costs.
impersonal il convient de + two nominalizations, hausse and augmentation, doing the work of two verbs
Votre candidature a été examinée avec la plus grande attention.
Your application was examined with the utmost care.
passive construction removes any named agent (who examined it is left unstated, as is standard in formal replies)
Il est porté à votre connaissance que le délai de traitement a été prolongé.
Please be advised that the processing period has been extended.
fully impersonal frame avoids both je and vous as grammatical subjects of the main verb
La mise en œuvre de cette réforme nécessitera une adaptation progressive des services concernés.
The implementation of this reform will require a gradual adaptation of the departments concerned.
mise en œuvre and adaptation are both nominalizations standing in for 'mettre en œuvre' and 's'adapter'
Il y a lieu de reconsidérer les modalités du contrat avant sa reconduction.
There is reason to reconsider the terms of the contract before its renewal.
il y a lieu de is a standard formal-register impersonal opener
Une réponse favorable serait grandement appréciée.
A favorable response would be greatly appreciated.
passive-adjacent construction (serait appréciée) avoids 'j'apprécierais'
L'annulation de la réunion s'explique par l'indisponibilité de plusieurs intervenants.
The cancellation of the meeting is due to the unavailability of several participants.
annulation and indisponibilité are nominalized forms of annuler and (ne pas être) disponible
Il apparaît que les objectifs fixés n'ont pas été atteints dans les délais impartis.
It appears that the set objectives were not achieved within the allotted time.
il apparaît que displaces a personal judgment ('je pense que...') into an impersonal observation
Le non-respect de ces conditions entraînera la résiliation immédiate du contrat.
Failure to comply with these conditions will result in immediate termination of the contract.
non-respect and résiliation are nominalizations that let the sentence avoid naming who fails to comply or who terminates
Erreurs fréquentes
- Writing formal letters as chains of je + verb ('je vous informe... je vous demande... j'espère...'), which is grammatically fine but reads as under-formal for the genre compared to native models.
- Overusing on as a default impersonal subject in high-formality documents, where native writers reach for the passive or il + impersonal verb instead.
- Building nominalizations incorrectly by guessing the suffix, e.g. saying 'la décidation' instead of la décision, or 'l'augmention' instead of l'augmentation — these noun forms must be learned per verb, not generated by a single reliable rule.
- Using the passive with an explicit par-agent when the whole point of formal register is to omit the agent, producing awkward hybrids like 'la décision a été prise par moi' instead of simply j'ai décidé or the fully impersonal la décision a été prise.
- Overusing nominalization until the sentence becomes an unreadable stack of abstract nouns with no verb at all — formal register still needs a small number of strong linking verbs (résulter de, s'expliquer par, entraîner, nécessiter) to connect the nouns.
Pourquoi ça trompe les anglophones
- English formal register leans on passive voice too, but far less on nominalization — English keeps more verbs where French would convert them to nouns, so a literal translation from English formal writing under-nominalizes and reads as too direct in French.
- English speakers are taught that avoiding 'I' in formal writing is about politeness or hedging; French depersonalization is instead a structural register marker independent of politeness, which makes it easy to under-apply it in genuinely formal contexts (contracts, official letters) where it's obligatory rather than optional.
- There's no productive, exceptionless rule for which nominalizing suffix a given verb takes (-tion vs. -ment vs. -age vs. -ance), so English speakers who are used to English's more regular -tion/-ing system default to guessing and produce non-words.