This essay reconsiders the French taught in the Manières de langage, a group of French conversation manuals written and used in fifteenth-century England. Focusing especially on their deployment by the Oxford dictatores, a succession of business teachers active on the fringes of the late medieval university, and viewing them in the context of the Hundred Years War, it argues that the Manières prepared their users for careers in the English Continental territories, particularly Normandy, as well as at home. The Manières thus provide a fresh point of entry into discussions regarding the effects of medieval pedagogy on social mobility.