Style Nominal vs. Style Verbal
Style Nominal vs. Style Verbal
Formal written English already leans on nominalization too — 'the implementation of the decision' instead of 'we implemented the decision' — but French pushes this habit much further, making the nominal style the unmarked default in journalism, official reports, and academic prose, rather than just one option among several registers.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Nominal style compresses a clause into a noun phrase
la décision du gouvernement de réduire les impôts (the government's decision to reduce taxes) vs. le gouvernement a décidé de réduire les impôts (the government decided to reduce taxes)
the government's decision to reduce taxes vs. the government decided to reduce taxes
Style nominal turns the verb décider into the noun décision and packs the whole event — actor, action, and object — into a single dense noun phrase, exactly the mechanism English uses when it turns 'decide' into 'decision' or 'announce' into 'announcement.' The difference is degree: English bureaucratic and academic writing uses this occasionally, but French deploys it as the default even in routine newspaper articles, where equivalent English writing would usually still choose the plainer verbal clause — so a French text that merely feels 'formal' can read as unexpectedly dense if you translate it nominalization-for-nominalization into English.
Unpacking nominal style when reading
Après l'annonce de la fermeture de l'usine, les employés ont manifesté. (After the announcement of the factory's closure, the employees protested.)
After the announcement of the factory's closure, the employees protested.
A practical reading strategy for dense nominal sentences: mentally convert each nominalized phrase back into a clause — l'annonce de la fermeture becomes quelqu'un a annoncé que l'usine fermerait. English readers already do this instinctively with English nominalizations, so the skill itself isn't new, but French journalistic and official prose requires applying it far more aggressively and more often than the occasional nominalization you'd unpack in English.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| la décision (de) | lah day-see-ZYOHN | the decision (nominal, from décider) |
| la mise en œuvre | lah meez ahn UH-vruh | the implementation (nominal, from mettre en œuvre) |
| le refus (de) | luh ruh-FEW | the refusal (nominal, from refuser) |
| la hausse (de) | lah OHS | the rise / increase (nominal, from augmenter) |
| la baisse (de) | lah BESS | the fall / decrease (nominal, from baisser) |
| l'entrée en vigueur | lahn-TRAY ahn vee-GUHR | coming into effect (nominal, from entrer en vigueur) |
| suite à | sweet AH | following (connector typical of nominal style) |
| quant à | kahn TAH | as for / regarding |