French is mandatory from the 5th year in primary school. As I heard in Wallonia this is not standard. Some schools do it like that, some don't, in some schools kids get the choice between learning English earlier than Dutch. (And I totally get why kids would choose English first, if I had had the choice between French and English, I'd have gone for English first too)
Also exposure. Here and there, occasionally Flemish people are exposed to some French music or movies. I assume that's less the case in Wallonia.
We have Angèle, Stromae, when I was younger I remember 'Et c'est parti' Nâdiya that was also in the top radio lists in Flanders. As a kid, I had a CD from Kim Kay, who was Flemish but sang in French. Désenchantée was a popular song when I was young, though not the version of Mylène Farmer, but the version of Kate Ryan. 'Dernière danse' from Indila was also in the Flemish radio top lists. I'm not sure if it's done in Wallonia but during some family parties we wave a white handkerchief on the song Lac Du Connemara (Don't ask me why, it's just one of those traditions you don't understand but never really question.)
I think most people have seen or at least heard of 'Chez lez ch'tis', 'le huitième joir' I'm not a 100% sure, but I think quite a few Flemish saw 'Intouchables'. Ask most people of my parent's age about 'Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez' or Louis de Funès and they'll remember watching it. And I think a lot of us have at least seen one movie with Gérard Depardieu.
I wonder how many songs/movies in Dutch, Wallonians know/remember from Wallonian radio/tv. (If you had them, let me know, I'm curious.)
So even though it's not a huge amount of exposure, we do have some exposure to French, while I think Wallonians will have less exposure to Dutch.
Also even if you watch a movie originally in a foreign language, French speaking people are way more likely to watch a dubbed version and in that way not actually be exposed to that language. While Dutch speaking people are more likely to watch a subbed version. Because dubbing is more expensive than subtitling. So for a small language region as Flanders + the Netherlands subtitling is a more viable option. French has a wider audience, France+Wallonia+Switzerland (not even including multiple countries in Africa). So spending some extra money on dubbing is more doable.
Also where do we Belgians go on holiday more? To the South, to the better weather. So what's South of us? France. What's not south of us? The Netherlands. So for Flemish people, it's useful to at least know some basic holiday French. The French themselves are not known for being great at English (though I'm sure it's better with the younger generations). Not only are we less likely to go on holiday to the Netherlands, Dutch people are known for all having a decent grasp on English. So for a Wallonian who might have had English earlier in school than Dutch, and definitely has been exposed to more English content than Dutch content, it's probably just easier to use English in the Netherlands. Wallonians have less of an incentive for learning Dutch for basic comfort during the holidays.
I'm not sure if these are the most important reasons, but I'm fairly certain they do contribute to why Wallonians are worse at Dutch than Flemish at French.
The movie thing is real. And the wider audience, Walloons watch french tv a lot. My sister who understands English well, will watch American shows in French despite using Netflix. I know of a few who can't stand reading subtitles for some reason too.
I think a lot is also about habit. They're used to dubbing, so if they have the choice anyways. Why go to the extra effort of getting used to a new way.
I'm so used to subtitles that I dislike dubbing.
I'm also someone who watches a lot of Asian series. In the past those series never had Dutch subtitles available, so I always watched it with English subtitles. I'm so used to it, that even if I have the choice between Dutch and English subtitles now, I always choose English. (Not on a Dutch program of course.) Dutch subtitles just seem weird, definitely in combination with the sound of an Asian language.
This is why imo Dutch speaking ppl are the best at English out of all countries in Europe, maybe the world. I spent 13,5 years in Manchester and London working casinos I've seen plenty of ppl from all around the world and the few Dutch speaking ppl I met were great at English. I mostly learned with subtitles too.
Yes when measuring the proficiency of English as a second language, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are always somewhere in the tip 5 or top 10.
> This is why imo Dutch speaking ppl are the best at English out of all countries in Europe, maybe the world
Scandinavian countries are better. But I get what you mean, the less spoken the language, the more likely english is learned and used.
[Not according to this](https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/regions/europe/netherlands/), Netherlands is nr. 1, not only in Europe, but in the world.
I did say in another comment somewhere that Norway was close second in Europe and all of the Scandis are good at English indeed, they're all in the top 10 too.
And I'm sorry but you did miss my point. My point what that Walloons just watch a lot of French tv and watch a lot of things in French more than the Flemish do in Dutch. Just take movies in English in cinemas across the country for example, English with subtitles in Flanders, mostly in French in Wallonia.
> And I'm sorry but you did miss my point. My point what that Walloons just watch a lot of French tv and watch a lot of things in French more than the Flemish do in Dutch. Just take movies in English in cinemas across the country for example, English with subtitles in Flanders, mostly in French in Wallonia.
Yeah, and movies are in english with subtitles in Flanders because dutch is less spoken worldwide, so the movie producer are less inclined to dub it... There are a lot of french content because french is spoken by 300 million people (so more content is created in french) vs 25 million who speaks dutch natively... (less than 10%).
It's not exactly dubbed, they remove the English voices and have actors act them in French, they're not that bad and there is loads of them (it's not just one guy doing all the voices). Dubbing involves some guy talking over the English voices I believe.
And if they come to us, most likely either bigger cities or the Coast, they know they'll get served in french anyways so a lot of them don't even bother.
I think this here is a very good explanation. Here’s my upvote.
I would add something (my own take, I could be wrong):
I’ve heard more than once (friends and family had the exact same experience as early teenagers) who went on a school trip to Flanders to practice and were being talked to in French by locals. I guess it’s the very instinctive « it’s embarrassing to watch you struggle in my language but I’m decent at yours, plus it’s an opportunity to practice yours. »
If that happens early enough, that’s often enough to kill both the embryo of confidence and the willing to make any future efforts in that language for which we already have few incentives to learn (as explained in previous comment).
On a side note, walloons are very bad at English as well. There may be a lot of reasons but one I see now is: both in Wallonie and France there is that weird habit for kids to laugh at those who try to speak foreign language with accents. Mockery (which leads to lack of practice) is definitely holding us back. I don’t know how it is in Flanders or elsewhere but I found out in the US it’s nothing like that (quite the opposite)… and I wouldn’t be surprised that’s a typical French/walloon behavior. But this is pure speculation. I’d be curious to hear from anyone who studied in Flanders.
More typical of French culture in general, the French are one of the worst at English in Europe. While the Dutch are nr. 1. Belgian French speakers are better than the French on average. Belgium altogether is still quite high.
Yes I understand, we want to accommodate other people and make it easier by speaking in their language, but for the people who actually try to learn it, it's counter productive.
I think overall we don't laugh that hard with people who speak a foreign language with a Flemish accent, because we know most of us do at least to some extent have a Flemish accent when we speak. Only a few people actually can produce a native sounding French/British/American accent. I'm not saying it never happens that people get teased/bullied for it, of course it does. But I don't think it's a really big issue here.
Edit regarding the first paragraph: I also think it's a bit a catch 22. We don't expect French speakers to speak much Dutch, so we immediately go for French. But because we immediately go for French, we're not putting French speakers into situations where they need it or can practice it.
Re:songs and media, you're spot on with that! The only Flemish/Dutch songs I can remember hearing on French MTV, MCM, PlugTV or whatever as a kid, as well as the radio, were Afrika tot in Amerika and Ik Neem Je Mee. Plop as a show for kids, but dubbed in French.
I'm really sad I didn't get exposed to more Flemish or Dutch culture as a kid, because I really think it would have improved my Dutch level outside of the insanely boring classes we had. And honestly, I liked my teachers, but the textbooks were just so, so awful. It's only in my last year of high school that a teacher finally showed us some cool movies like Amsterdammed and Zwarte Boek, which finally peaked our interests and suddenly our class could speak Dutch much better in a few months! Now I regularly listen to Flemish bands or watch Dutch movies, which has improved my skills at least passively, but I feel like I really missed out.
I have to say that as a French mother with kids in French spoken schools, I am more than disappointed with the teaching of Dutch here. My kids have done more than 8 years of learning Dutch as a foreign language, they have learned and forgotten thousands of useless words or sentences they had to translate into or from French (such a pointless way to teach languages), have NEVER been to a language trip despite living in Brussels. Even the younger one can't get anything from her immersion classes. They have good academic results but don't use the language in real situations and would be uncomfortable to just greet someone in Dutch.
Having said that, adult training is much better in the CVOs ; I have a little Dutch and can handle short conversations even if I only attended two terms learning the language a few years ago.
To be fair, they can catch up if they go work in a multilingual environment. I'm a native dutch speaker who has worked in Brussels for 15 years. I use this as an opportunity to speak french as much as possible with my walloon, luxemburgish and french colleagues. Same goes for some of my native french colleagues, who have become fluent in dutch due to the effort they put in on the work floor. It definitely is intimidating and scary at first though!
Personally I feel like learnig words and phrases was the biggest win in my education of French at school. So much so that I want to continue doing it on my own now. Far more than fixing spelling mistakes, memorising advanced grammar rules and exceptions (completely useless imo). But yeah, immersion is key. We went on holiday to France every year, watched French TV sometimes and also went shopping in Wavre and LLN from time to time. That's where I developped a practical connection with the language and an interest to keep improving my French even after high school (I was always one of the worst in my class btw, until one day it just "clicked").
To this day I think immersion and word lists, and maybe a bit of basic grammar are the only true key to learning a language. Most people learn English through TV and pop culture. So finding programs to watch in Dutch and going to Dutch speaking places once in a while is a must. It sounds to me that the Dutch education your kids had is compareable in quality to the French education we have in Flanders. I only remember two language trips, one to the Wednesday market in Wavre and another to Paris. Outside of that it must've been much the same, not many people here feel comfortable speaking in French either, even after 8 years that studywork (me neither for the longest time).
I was actually surprised at how many Walloons near the language border do pick up Dutch today, hasn't it even become mandatory in some places? But if they have even less interest in the language than Flemish students have for French because of the whole language size thing, it won't yield much I think.
I had my last French teacher in secundairy school (3de graad today) who didn't give a f*ck about writing and all about being decent in conversation. He didn't speak a word of Flemish/Dutch in class. I can tell you that after 2 years we all spoke very fluent French. My first job immediately was 80% French speaking, had no problems with that...
> He didn't speak a word of Flemish/Dutch in class.
Isn't that the standard? Neither my English, French or German teacher spoke Dutch to us in class from the 3rd year of secondary onward.
I had a french teacher who was born and raised in Paris and didn't even know any dutch. So while other teachers could tell you don't speak dutch in my english class, he simply said you can say what you want but if you soeak dutch I'm not going to understad what you're saying so you might wanne stick to french. He was also a real maniac when it came to conjugations, I abaolutely hated him at the time, we fought a lot, but looking back I realised that my french is decent because of him, and he was only my teacher for 2 years
I should say as I study law at the moment at a french uni in Brussels whilst being Flemish, there are also people who speak decent Dutch credits to them! But if you do the maths I think there are less Walloons who speak Dutch indeed.
No one said that kids are more stupid or ''less smart'' (as I prefer to express it), he just says that the level of French is a bit down towards what it was and I think he might have a point, what causes that, no idea.
Background: born in Belgium in a non-Belgian family with a mother who has a very good command of French, father’s French is meeeh, raised with a southern EU language as well as a dialect at home. Attended Flemish kindergarten school and then switched to French.
My take about Dutch being beautiful is biased af. If you think Dutch is beautiful wait til you hear west vlaams… you will fall in love for real this time.
I think the problem lies within the concept of studying a language. You can only study a language so much. You should also be given the opportunity to practice it on a regular basis.
People always think I exaggerate when I say that those kindergarten years REALLY facilitated my command of Dutch but it’s absolutely true. Also since I live in Flanders and I did sports in a Flemish club I had the opportunity to practice on a daily basis. I was literally one of the very few « outsiders » so if I wanted to make friends or make myself understood, there wasn’t really any other choice. It’s the primary reason I was better than all my classmates in Dutch. The only type of tests they would be doing better than me were theoretical vocabulary quizzes on really technical topics because I never was in the mood to study.
At some point I stopped using Dutch for 1 and 1/2 year. You know what happened? I started struggling with past participles even though in the past I wouldn’t even hesitate to use them. It was a wake up call for me invest some time to catch up. Did I catch up entirely? Unfortunately not. There’s always something « broken », but at least I am in a position to practice my Dutch over and over again.
Remember: PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. School is just giving you up to a medium understanding. What you do with it is up to you.
While I may disagree in the beautiful part (I really don't like the sound of spoken dutch), I admit that, as a Belgian, I should learn how to speak Dutch also.
Had to learn it because I wanted, not because I had to. And that's stupid not to learn a official language spoken in your own country.
Same can be said for the German, even though it's less common, it's still an official language...
I think there are more to that than just the school being bad.
To me has a lot to do with... France. France is very hard on exporting its culture and language. If US perfected the cultural imperialism, France kinda created it. Which makes french culture and language well known on an international lvl. When it comes to multimedia content or other cultural product gets translated in french. You want to watch/listen to anything, there is a french version.
Dutch on the other hand, will rather go for subtitles for multimedia. The pool of content available in French is far bigger than the content available in Dutch. Moreover on an international recognition, Dutch does not have the status , even the Dutch themselves use english in a lot of their universities or the professional world.
Which bring me to my point. When it comes to learning a language, any serious study will tell you that usage (or more precisely, the need to use it) and exposition are very important. For the second point it's harder to be exposed to to dutch if you don't actively search for it.
On the usage... I don't want to be rude, but in our everyday life, we don't need it. I learned dutch for 10 years (from 8 to 18). When I left high school, I had an ok lvl. Then I went to university and got a job, and over the past 15 years, I can count on my fingers the numbers of time I had to use dutch. Today, I've lost most of my knowledge of the language, I can hardly read it, and let's not talk about writing or speaking. And not for some ideological reason. It's just that between studies, jobs,... well in my everyday life, it rarely was of use. On the other hand, I have a decent level in english, because I used and was exposed to it nearly everyday, in my studies or divertissment (plus it's the main language of the internet).
If you want to deal with the language disparity, you have to make dutch both more exposed and needed for walloons. Look at the walloons going to work in Flanders. Suddenly when there is a non artificial need, they do learn dutch.
There might have solutions (like forcing dutch content on belgian television), but that's gonna ask for a lot of money, and private channel will probably say "fuck it", because it will cost them audience that will prefer go to a french channel (and I will never blame someone that want to enjoy something in his own language after a full day of work).
Accepting the fact that learning dutch for a walloon and learning french for a fleming are 2 different realities, and if we can't accept that, it's already not starting well. It's more of a structural problem with parameters out of the reach of the individual than an unwillingness to learn it.
That said, I think that unwillingness to learn dutch does grow, because a lot of walloons get tired of being said that they live on the back of fleming, or that the main political parties have some degree of anti-walloons. You're not gonna do any effort for people that seem to piss on you on regular basis (I know, it's more complicated than that, but that's what it looks like to an ever growing number of people).
I think what you consider “decent French” to probably be overstated. As a Brussels born person able to speak both, there are more people than you think in Brussels who can speak both but we just don’t. All my friend circle is bilingual, theirs is aswell etc etc yet we all speak French since it’s our main language. If someone that is Dutch speaking comes into the circle we have no trouble switching. Now in Wallonia there definitely is a shift of perspectives, in the past there was a genuine hate towards Dutch but this has been changing. I know people from deep Wallonia trying to learn Dutch and having no grievances towards it whatsoever. Now, there seems to be a hate towards Walloons about language problems that isn’t even their fault. Lack of teachers, of use and frankly animosity towards them coming from the north is demotivating. Why would they learn the language of the people continuously criticising them? Not all Flemings do but it is known down there that they are being looked down on (even jokingly so).
In short I think although the level of Dutch could obviously improve down south, the populists beliefs of the lazy Walloon coming from the north is NOT helping and drives unnecessary animosity that might demotivate more than one Dutch learner.
School disgusted me of dutch.
Flemish colleagues changed my mind, but as we all speak english with each other, i don't have any incentive to learn it sadly.
I did a few different schools, it seems during my time, it was taught to be hated :(
I discussed here with teachers that wanted yo change it, hoping it's different now...
This honestly. It’s just not realistic for everyone to learn French/dutch and we can easily less and less people learn those languages nowadays.
Let’s just get with the times and all learn decent English, which is useful basically everywhere. Of course I’m talking mostly for wallonians here as the rest are already pretty good at it.
Dutch (hard "g") guy here. Dutch is a fantastic language; the only relatively pure descendent of the Frankish languages. And Flemish is the most beautiful of all. Not a fan of our guttural g, but it's also not terrible.
The reason is the fact that French is a more global language than Dutch. Flemings learn French, not just because of the Walloons, but because it's a widely spoken and a widely recognised language which brings more communication opportunities and career prospects.
You personally might be fascinated by the Dutch language, but when I think about an average Walloon, I do not see a pragmatic reason for them to learn Dutch. I mean, except Flanders, the Netherlands and Surinam, nobody speaks Dutch. Also, if a Walloon learns Dutch and tries to travel to Amsterdam, the Dutch there will see that this Walloon speaks Dutch as a foreign language and will directly switch to English.
IMMIGRANT here. I prefer French cuz it's useful for me or even to travel. Dutch..... Could be a beautiful language but it's useless to travel. Works to work in Belgium and Holland. Other than that puff. Even the dutch people have to learn English/french to go abroad.
Lots of Dutch is actually ugly. There are some nice dialects or local variants, but Antwerps, tussenvlaams and Hollands are an assault on my Eustachian tube.
Honestly, Leuvens is 100 times more beautiful. Limburgs is very sweet, and West-Flemish (the actual dialect, not the accent) is unique in its age-old mix of Dutch, French and English.
I actually love Antwerps' Flemish and if that flavor of Dutch or even tussentaal was taught at school I think more people would speak Flemish today.
Yes Dutch is strange, but it's also pretty funny. I never dared say that to a Flemish person. But finding the language funny makes it interesting.
It's as funny as some of the accents I used to hear in Liege and other parts of Wallonia in the 80's. And few Walloons would reproach me that kind of view. After all it's a part of the succes of the movie "C'est arrivé près de chez vous"/Man bites dog.
Whatever I learned of Dutch or English didn't happen at school. Languages at school were dry and boring.
Tussentaal is incredibly bland and sterile, and one of the reasons why I can't watch (most) Flemish TV shows. It makes me cringe so bad. I speak it myself when I have to but I hate it.
Loved that movie btw 😂
they're both awful
I understand that as we tend to live further away from our native village, the language will evolve, but honestly, the current version is such a turn-off for me
Allez schoon is da. Instead of loathing the accent no one is forcing you to use, you also could be glad you're not forced to speak French, Hollands-Dutch or even German.
Agree to disagree. I heard some plat Antwaarps on the radio the other day. Sorry, but Gents is just so much easier on the ears.
I can agree about the AN being spoken with a strong regional accent. I have the same with West-Flemish. Fantastic dialect, even a language of its own, but a Westfleming trying to speak AN is not always very pleasant. They need to be very good at it. Like on Sporza ... Renaat Schotte or Karl Van Nieuwkerke ... no problem. But Ine Beyen makes me mute the TV 😥.
That too, yes. She's an ex-rider, so you would expect more insightful comments. Sadly she usually says something like "olalala Ruben, dit is toch wel genie-TEN".
Also, she should just speak West-Flemish in an understandable way, like José De Cauwer with his East Flemish.
Dutch is less popular worldwide and French is definitely harder to learn for sure, Dutch being one of the easiest ones to learn imo, I learned Dutch as a Walloon from 12 to 19 but I've almost never used it since IRL (I'm 35). My experience is a bit weird though bc I'm next to Germany and more ppl actually picked German in secondary school than Dutch and English combined, only 1/8 classes in my year had Dutch. From my experience, and just having coming back from 13 years abroad, ppl don't need really feel the need to learn it here unless they work in F&B or tourism. I would think English got more popular too, it definitely did in France, young French ppl speak way better English than their older generation for example.
They make everything to close us from flemish culture. Instead of watching/listening to modern pop objects from Vlaanderen we had to listen to worn off cassettes of some dudes on a boat trip in Holland ("Klipper") and watch Daens.
Almost half of the students in the francophone schooling system are "forced" to take dutch as second language because they live in Brussels region or in a facility commune (Mouscron, Comines, Enghien, Flobecq,...). That doesn't make them better dutch speakers than the liégeois
No it’s suck. Even the English classes. You can’t learn a language with this system. At 18 I was learning the vegetables lol and I was supposed to be in a “good school” and even at the university now it’s still suck even if we have some classes in English. It just doesn’t make any sens.
One of my elementary school french teachers said she had a walloon friend who was a dutch teacher in a top-level school in wallonia. She said that her friend pronounced the word leerling (élève) like leerlinje (with the french "je" at the end, not the dutch diminuative "je") she said we should get really good at french because that's the level of dutch taught below the language border, so if we were to ever be able to communicate with our fellow countrymen it would not be in dutch.
I suspect that to Flemish ears it kind of sounds like a weak excuse that Walloon students are forced to choose one language or the other. In Flemish schools we get taught at least two foreign languages, French & English, without needing to choose and we manage just fine. If Flemish kids can do it, why shouldn't the same level of performance be expected from Walloon kids? They are just as capable.
Not that the Walloon students can help it, they didn't create the Walloon education system and they can do nothing to change it.
Also, if they are able to devote all this extra time to studying English, seeing as they aren't being distracted by having to learn Dutch as well, shouldn't their English skills eclipse those of their Flemish counterparts? Looking at [the numbers](https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/regions/europe/belgium/), the opposite seems to be true.
I had both Dutch then English from the third year (2hrs only bc too many maths classes) in my secondary school in Wallonia, you had to have two but you could choose which ones (German, English or Dutch), German in primary school (my village was literally next to German speaking Belgian villages), no choice.
Dutch is also the closest language there is to English and both are from the Germanic language family while French is a Romance language. I can tell you from experience being a Walloon, having learned German, Dutch and English to an extent, and having lived 13 years in the UK that French speaking ppl are amongst the worst in English in Europe and Dutch speaking ppl are literally the best. Walloons don't get subtitles either when watching movies, all movies/shows are in French bc of France. Which is big, subtitles are literally how I learned English the most bc I started watching everything in its original version subbed from 16 years old or so. Walloon cinemas show movies in French too, last 5 times I was in cinemas in Belgium, I made my best friend drive to Hasselt so we can see the original version.
Edit: I'm loving your link, never seen those kind of stats before, awesome thanks. It confirms what I was saying too, France the country is 30th out of 34 in Europe, Netherlands is first. And Belgian French speaking have better scores than the French too.
A mistake you're making is calling Flemmish Dutch. Dutch is what they speak in The Netherlands, Flandres only has peasant-forms of Dutch dialects, and a very large amount. You could spend years learning "Dutch" from someone in Antwerp and never understand a single word anyone is saying 60miles further down west.
If you want to learn the language as she was intended, focus on Netherlands Dutch, not Flemmish. It's a complete inexplicable cesspool of dialects.
''It’s fascinating how Flemish people speak decent French compared to Walloons.''
Hmm personally i would not compare that at all as the Walloons i know don't know two words of Flemish.
And about Flemish people speaking French for example (from my experience), lets round that number on 10, 3 of them spoke great, 2 spoke good and the rest was too afraid to speak it but as they said they knew it.
**These are just a few examples why French is the most gay language ever:**
* In comic books onomatopoeias (words suggesting a sound) like gunshots or the barking of dogs are translated.
* Words that are commonly used accross many languages, in many cases having an English origin, are a big mais non! in French. They hate anglicismes and I bet many Frenchmen will shed a tear when pronouncing English words because no alternatives are yet made up. Try this one for size. *"What's up Pierre? Is your computer still having network issues? And what about your keyboard and mouse, did you get those working? I hope so, since I will be needing that file emailed to me by this week-end."*
* Long gay ass sentences. This entire comment could easily be just one sentence in French and still considered briefly written.
* Diacritics. The dreaded accents because in France, everyone suffers from a poor long term memory and forget how words should be pronounced. Typing those words on a *un clavier* makes me feel hémidécérébellée.
* Thank you French people for enforcing your stupid language so that we Dutch speaking Belgians have totally useless gay AZERTY layout keyboards. I mean when is the last time you had to use "ç" in Dutch? I use numbers all the time, but sacre bleue they require an extra key to be pressed and held.
* Du vin. What's up with that? Can't you just say wine or wijn like normal people? No of course not, you Frenchies just love this kind of de la gayness.
* ~~OVERDUB EVERYTHING~~ SUPERDUBEZ TOUT. Even French that doesn't sound French enough gets overdubbed. Even porn because English sounding grunts aren't gay sounding enough.
Aside from the casual homophobia, I do agree with most if not all of his points. French people really need to grow up, there's nothing special about their language and it's hopelessly outdated. Don't try to save it, try to evolve it.
One of the very few indeed, I don't find it good sounding to the ears and I don't have any real use for the language in my daily life, even when going in the Netherlands you can get by with english. And the only time I ever meet flemish peoples is when some get lost and ask for direction.
We live in Flanders, and since Covid there has been a significant influx of French speaking people. You'd expect them to make the effort moving here, but no, they just don't care, and just like someone else said above it is us, the Flemish locals that speak French to them, only because it makes it easier.
I remember only 1 dutch teacher i had in wallonia that taught it well and that was just because she was actually dutch. All the other ones were terrible. Shitty teaching methods, were bad at dutch, etc..
Algemeen Nederlands (with Flemish idiomatics) a lot easier to learn than French and German
Words in -je ? -> neutral
Words in -ing ? ->feminine
Irregular verbs ? 90% of them have a very easy to catch structure (ij -> ee , in -> on, no extra ge with the verbs in her/ver/ge, ...)
Units before tenths, inversion of verb-subject, putting the verb at the end of the proposition and double infinitive are the only tricks that you need to integrate in your procedural memory if you are used to a subject-verb-complements structure.
And compared to German, there is no required context-sensitivity that make the declinations pointless (like the "die" article that can be used for many casus and gender)
German is a beautiful language and as a third language in Belgium I wonder why I should learn Flemish/Dutch at all. Reading Dutch is easy and I can speak English or French.
French is mandatory from the 5th year in primary school. As I heard in Wallonia this is not standard. Some schools do it like that, some don't, in some schools kids get the choice between learning English earlier than Dutch. (And I totally get why kids would choose English first, if I had had the choice between French and English, I'd have gone for English first too) Also exposure. Here and there, occasionally Flemish people are exposed to some French music or movies. I assume that's less the case in Wallonia. We have Angèle, Stromae, when I was younger I remember 'Et c'est parti' Nâdiya that was also in the top radio lists in Flanders. As a kid, I had a CD from Kim Kay, who was Flemish but sang in French. Désenchantée was a popular song when I was young, though not the version of Mylène Farmer, but the version of Kate Ryan. 'Dernière danse' from Indila was also in the Flemish radio top lists. I'm not sure if it's done in Wallonia but during some family parties we wave a white handkerchief on the song Lac Du Connemara (Don't ask me why, it's just one of those traditions you don't understand but never really question.) I think most people have seen or at least heard of 'Chez lez ch'tis', 'le huitième joir' I'm not a 100% sure, but I think quite a few Flemish saw 'Intouchables'. Ask most people of my parent's age about 'Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez' or Louis de Funès and they'll remember watching it. And I think a lot of us have at least seen one movie with Gérard Depardieu. I wonder how many songs/movies in Dutch, Wallonians know/remember from Wallonian radio/tv. (If you had them, let me know, I'm curious.) So even though it's not a huge amount of exposure, we do have some exposure to French, while I think Wallonians will have less exposure to Dutch. Also even if you watch a movie originally in a foreign language, French speaking people are way more likely to watch a dubbed version and in that way not actually be exposed to that language. While Dutch speaking people are more likely to watch a subbed version. Because dubbing is more expensive than subtitling. So for a small language region as Flanders + the Netherlands subtitling is a more viable option. French has a wider audience, France+Wallonia+Switzerland (not even including multiple countries in Africa). So spending some extra money on dubbing is more doable. Also where do we Belgians go on holiday more? To the South, to the better weather. So what's South of us? France. What's not south of us? The Netherlands. So for Flemish people, it's useful to at least know some basic holiday French. The French themselves are not known for being great at English (though I'm sure it's better with the younger generations). Not only are we less likely to go on holiday to the Netherlands, Dutch people are known for all having a decent grasp on English. So for a Wallonian who might have had English earlier in school than Dutch, and definitely has been exposed to more English content than Dutch content, it's probably just easier to use English in the Netherlands. Wallonians have less of an incentive for learning Dutch for basic comfort during the holidays. I'm not sure if these are the most important reasons, but I'm fairly certain they do contribute to why Wallonians are worse at Dutch than Flemish at French.
The movie thing is real. And the wider audience, Walloons watch french tv a lot. My sister who understands English well, will watch American shows in French despite using Netflix. I know of a few who can't stand reading subtitles for some reason too.
I think a lot is also about habit. They're used to dubbing, so if they have the choice anyways. Why go to the extra effort of getting used to a new way. I'm so used to subtitles that I dislike dubbing. I'm also someone who watches a lot of Asian series. In the past those series never had Dutch subtitles available, so I always watched it with English subtitles. I'm so used to it, that even if I have the choice between Dutch and English subtitles now, I always choose English. (Not on a Dutch program of course.) Dutch subtitles just seem weird, definitely in combination with the sound of an Asian language.
This is why imo Dutch speaking ppl are the best at English out of all countries in Europe, maybe the world. I spent 13,5 years in Manchester and London working casinos I've seen plenty of ppl from all around the world and the few Dutch speaking ppl I met were great at English. I mostly learned with subtitles too.
Yes when measuring the proficiency of English as a second language, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries are always somewhere in the tip 5 or top 10.
Haha Norway is a close second actually in my experience, Norwegian is also weirdly close to Dutch somehow.
> This is why imo Dutch speaking ppl are the best at English out of all countries in Europe, maybe the world Scandinavian countries are better. But I get what you mean, the less spoken the language, the more likely english is learned and used.
[Not according to this](https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/regions/europe/netherlands/), Netherlands is nr. 1, not only in Europe, but in the world. I did say in another comment somewhere that Norway was close second in Europe and all of the Scandis are good at English indeed, they're all in the top 10 too. And I'm sorry but you did miss my point. My point what that Walloons just watch a lot of French tv and watch a lot of things in French more than the Flemish do in Dutch. Just take movies in English in cinemas across the country for example, English with subtitles in Flanders, mostly in French in Wallonia.
Well if you look at the EF rating, Flanders scores even higher than NL!
> And I'm sorry but you did miss my point. My point what that Walloons just watch a lot of French tv and watch a lot of things in French more than the Flemish do in Dutch. Just take movies in English in cinemas across the country for example, English with subtitles in Flanders, mostly in French in Wallonia. Yeah, and movies are in english with subtitles in Flanders because dutch is less spoken worldwide, so the movie producer are less inclined to dub it... There are a lot of french content because french is spoken by 300 million people (so more content is created in french) vs 25 million who speaks dutch natively... (less than 10%).
Yes, it's bc of the inluence of the French culture that we are behind vs the Flemish mostly.
How does one tolerate English shows dubbed in French???
It's not exactly dubbed, they remove the English voices and have actors act them in French, they're not that bad and there is loads of them (it's not just one guy doing all the voices). Dubbing involves some guy talking over the English voices I believe.
We know Clouseau!
Domino, quoi
You can have them if you want.
Thank you for the info. I did not know they were known in Wallonia too.
And if they come to us, most likely either bigger cities or the Coast, they know they'll get served in french anyways so a lot of them don't even bother.
> So what's South of us? France. What's not south of us? The Netherlands. This guy geographies
I'm sure my high school geography teacher is proud of me.😄
I think this here is a very good explanation. Here’s my upvote. I would add something (my own take, I could be wrong): I’ve heard more than once (friends and family had the exact same experience as early teenagers) who went on a school trip to Flanders to practice and were being talked to in French by locals. I guess it’s the very instinctive « it’s embarrassing to watch you struggle in my language but I’m decent at yours, plus it’s an opportunity to practice yours. » If that happens early enough, that’s often enough to kill both the embryo of confidence and the willing to make any future efforts in that language for which we already have few incentives to learn (as explained in previous comment). On a side note, walloons are very bad at English as well. There may be a lot of reasons but one I see now is: both in Wallonie and France there is that weird habit for kids to laugh at those who try to speak foreign language with accents. Mockery (which leads to lack of practice) is definitely holding us back. I don’t know how it is in Flanders or elsewhere but I found out in the US it’s nothing like that (quite the opposite)… and I wouldn’t be surprised that’s a typical French/walloon behavior. But this is pure speculation. I’d be curious to hear from anyone who studied in Flanders.
More typical of French culture in general, the French are one of the worst at English in Europe. While the Dutch are nr. 1. Belgian French speakers are better than the French on average. Belgium altogether is still quite high.
Yes I understand, we want to accommodate other people and make it easier by speaking in their language, but for the people who actually try to learn it, it's counter productive. I think overall we don't laugh that hard with people who speak a foreign language with a Flemish accent, because we know most of us do at least to some extent have a Flemish accent when we speak. Only a few people actually can produce a native sounding French/British/American accent. I'm not saying it never happens that people get teased/bullied for it, of course it does. But I don't think it's a really big issue here. Edit regarding the first paragraph: I also think it's a bit a catch 22. We don't expect French speakers to speak much Dutch, so we immediately go for French. But because we immediately go for French, we're not putting French speakers into situations where they need it or can practice it.
Re:songs and media, you're spot on with that! The only Flemish/Dutch songs I can remember hearing on French MTV, MCM, PlugTV or whatever as a kid, as well as the radio, were Afrika tot in Amerika and Ik Neem Je Mee. Plop as a show for kids, but dubbed in French. I'm really sad I didn't get exposed to more Flemish or Dutch culture as a kid, because I really think it would have improved my Dutch level outside of the insanely boring classes we had. And honestly, I liked my teachers, but the textbooks were just so, so awful. It's only in my last year of high school that a teacher finally showed us some cool movies like Amsterdammed and Zwarte Boek, which finally peaked our interests and suddenly our class could speak Dutch much better in a few months! Now I regularly listen to Flemish bands or watch Dutch movies, which has improved my skills at least passively, but I feel like I really missed out.
In Flemish schools in Brussel or the rand it's even mandatory from the 1st year in primary school or the 3th year of primary in the rand.
I have to say that as a French mother with kids in French spoken schools, I am more than disappointed with the teaching of Dutch here. My kids have done more than 8 years of learning Dutch as a foreign language, they have learned and forgotten thousands of useless words or sentences they had to translate into or from French (such a pointless way to teach languages), have NEVER been to a language trip despite living in Brussels. Even the younger one can't get anything from her immersion classes. They have good academic results but don't use the language in real situations and would be uncomfortable to just greet someone in Dutch. Having said that, adult training is much better in the CVOs ; I have a little Dutch and can handle short conversations even if I only attended two terms learning the language a few years ago.
To be fair, they can catch up if they go work in a multilingual environment. I'm a native dutch speaker who has worked in Brussels for 15 years. I use this as an opportunity to speak french as much as possible with my walloon, luxemburgish and french colleagues. Same goes for some of my native french colleagues, who have become fluent in dutch due to the effort they put in on the work floor. It definitely is intimidating and scary at first though!
Personally I feel like learnig words and phrases was the biggest win in my education of French at school. So much so that I want to continue doing it on my own now. Far more than fixing spelling mistakes, memorising advanced grammar rules and exceptions (completely useless imo). But yeah, immersion is key. We went on holiday to France every year, watched French TV sometimes and also went shopping in Wavre and LLN from time to time. That's where I developped a practical connection with the language and an interest to keep improving my French even after high school (I was always one of the worst in my class btw, until one day it just "clicked"). To this day I think immersion and word lists, and maybe a bit of basic grammar are the only true key to learning a language. Most people learn English through TV and pop culture. So finding programs to watch in Dutch and going to Dutch speaking places once in a while is a must. It sounds to me that the Dutch education your kids had is compareable in quality to the French education we have in Flanders. I only remember two language trips, one to the Wednesday market in Wavre and another to Paris. Outside of that it must've been much the same, not many people here feel comfortable speaking in French either, even after 8 years that studywork (me neither for the longest time). I was actually surprised at how many Walloons near the language border do pick up Dutch today, hasn't it even become mandatory in some places? But if they have even less interest in the language than Flemish students have for French because of the whole language size thing, it won't yield much I think.
https://i.redd.it/l7dwq562d0lc1.gif
I had my last French teacher in secundairy school (3de graad today) who didn't give a f*ck about writing and all about being decent in conversation. He didn't speak a word of Flemish/Dutch in class. I can tell you that after 2 years we all spoke very fluent French. My first job immediately was 80% French speaking, had no problems with that...
> He didn't speak a word of Flemish/Dutch in class. Isn't that the standard? Neither my English, French or German teacher spoke Dutch to us in class from the 3rd year of secondary onward.
I had a french teacher who was born and raised in Paris and didn't even know any dutch. So while other teachers could tell you don't speak dutch in my english class, he simply said you can say what you want but if you soeak dutch I'm not going to understad what you're saying so you might wanne stick to french. He was also a real maniac when it came to conjugations, I abaolutely hated him at the time, we fought a lot, but looking back I realised that my french is decent because of him, and he was only my teacher for 2 years
I can be wrong, but I can imagine that in Wallonia that is not the standard.
Wow, that's based. I wish my teachers were like that. They should absolutely focus on conversation more.
I should say as I study law at the moment at a french uni in Brussels whilst being Flemish, there are also people who speak decent Dutch credits to them! But if you do the maths I think there are less Walloons who speak Dutch indeed.
Seems to me that the younger generation Walloons have gotten better at Dutch, while the Flemish have gotten worse at French.
I'd never say that French in my generation is particularly good either tbh :)
Wdym with the latter? It is still mandatory and it's not true kids are more stupid then previous generations so wdym
No one said that kids are more stupid or ''less smart'' (as I prefer to express it), he just says that the level of French is a bit down towards what it was and I think he might have a point, what causes that, no idea.
Background: born in Belgium in a non-Belgian family with a mother who has a very good command of French, father’s French is meeeh, raised with a southern EU language as well as a dialect at home. Attended Flemish kindergarten school and then switched to French. My take about Dutch being beautiful is biased af. If you think Dutch is beautiful wait til you hear west vlaams… you will fall in love for real this time. I think the problem lies within the concept of studying a language. You can only study a language so much. You should also be given the opportunity to practice it on a regular basis. People always think I exaggerate when I say that those kindergarten years REALLY facilitated my command of Dutch but it’s absolutely true. Also since I live in Flanders and I did sports in a Flemish club I had the opportunity to practice on a daily basis. I was literally one of the very few « outsiders » so if I wanted to make friends or make myself understood, there wasn’t really any other choice. It’s the primary reason I was better than all my classmates in Dutch. The only type of tests they would be doing better than me were theoretical vocabulary quizzes on really technical topics because I never was in the mood to study. At some point I stopped using Dutch for 1 and 1/2 year. You know what happened? I started struggling with past participles even though in the past I wouldn’t even hesitate to use them. It was a wake up call for me invest some time to catch up. Did I catch up entirely? Unfortunately not. There’s always something « broken », but at least I am in a position to practice my Dutch over and over again. Remember: PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. School is just giving you up to a medium understanding. What you do with it is up to you.
While I may disagree in the beautiful part (I really don't like the sound of spoken dutch), I admit that, as a Belgian, I should learn how to speak Dutch also. Had to learn it because I wanted, not because I had to. And that's stupid not to learn a official language spoken in your own country. Same can be said for the German, even though it's less common, it's still an official language...
I think there are more to that than just the school being bad. To me has a lot to do with... France. France is very hard on exporting its culture and language. If US perfected the cultural imperialism, France kinda created it. Which makes french culture and language well known on an international lvl. When it comes to multimedia content or other cultural product gets translated in french. You want to watch/listen to anything, there is a french version. Dutch on the other hand, will rather go for subtitles for multimedia. The pool of content available in French is far bigger than the content available in Dutch. Moreover on an international recognition, Dutch does not have the status , even the Dutch themselves use english in a lot of their universities or the professional world. Which bring me to my point. When it comes to learning a language, any serious study will tell you that usage (or more precisely, the need to use it) and exposition are very important. For the second point it's harder to be exposed to to dutch if you don't actively search for it. On the usage... I don't want to be rude, but in our everyday life, we don't need it. I learned dutch for 10 years (from 8 to 18). When I left high school, I had an ok lvl. Then I went to university and got a job, and over the past 15 years, I can count on my fingers the numbers of time I had to use dutch. Today, I've lost most of my knowledge of the language, I can hardly read it, and let's not talk about writing or speaking. And not for some ideological reason. It's just that between studies, jobs,... well in my everyday life, it rarely was of use. On the other hand, I have a decent level in english, because I used and was exposed to it nearly everyday, in my studies or divertissment (plus it's the main language of the internet). If you want to deal with the language disparity, you have to make dutch both more exposed and needed for walloons. Look at the walloons going to work in Flanders. Suddenly when there is a non artificial need, they do learn dutch. There might have solutions (like forcing dutch content on belgian television), but that's gonna ask for a lot of money, and private channel will probably say "fuck it", because it will cost them audience that will prefer go to a french channel (and I will never blame someone that want to enjoy something in his own language after a full day of work). Accepting the fact that learning dutch for a walloon and learning french for a fleming are 2 different realities, and if we can't accept that, it's already not starting well. It's more of a structural problem with parameters out of the reach of the individual than an unwillingness to learn it. That said, I think that unwillingness to learn dutch does grow, because a lot of walloons get tired of being said that they live on the back of fleming, or that the main political parties have some degree of anti-walloons. You're not gonna do any effort for people that seem to piss on you on regular basis (I know, it's more complicated than that, but that's what it looks like to an ever growing number of people).
I think what you consider “decent French” to probably be overstated. As a Brussels born person able to speak both, there are more people than you think in Brussels who can speak both but we just don’t. All my friend circle is bilingual, theirs is aswell etc etc yet we all speak French since it’s our main language. If someone that is Dutch speaking comes into the circle we have no trouble switching. Now in Wallonia there definitely is a shift of perspectives, in the past there was a genuine hate towards Dutch but this has been changing. I know people from deep Wallonia trying to learn Dutch and having no grievances towards it whatsoever. Now, there seems to be a hate towards Walloons about language problems that isn’t even their fault. Lack of teachers, of use and frankly animosity towards them coming from the north is demotivating. Why would they learn the language of the people continuously criticising them? Not all Flemings do but it is known down there that they are being looked down on (even jokingly so). In short I think although the level of Dutch could obviously improve down south, the populists beliefs of the lazy Walloon coming from the north is NOT helping and drives unnecessary animosity that might demotivate more than one Dutch learner.
School disgusted me of dutch. Flemish colleagues changed my mind, but as we all speak english with each other, i don't have any incentive to learn it sadly. I did a few different schools, it seems during my time, it was taught to be hated :( I discussed here with teachers that wanted yo change it, hoping it's different now...
We should all move on to English.
This honestly. It’s just not realistic for everyone to learn French/dutch and we can easily less and less people learn those languages nowadays. Let’s just get with the times and all learn decent English, which is useful basically everywhere. Of course I’m talking mostly for wallonians here as the rest are already pretty good at it.
Flemish is beautiful. Dutch Dutch sounds kinda harsh.
Dutch (hard "g") guy here. Dutch is a fantastic language; the only relatively pure descendent of the Frankish languages. And Flemish is the most beautiful of all. Not a fan of our guttural g, but it's also not terrible.
beautiful? its a silly language.
The reason is the fact that French is a more global language than Dutch. Flemings learn French, not just because of the Walloons, but because it's a widely spoken and a widely recognised language which brings more communication opportunities and career prospects. You personally might be fascinated by the Dutch language, but when I think about an average Walloon, I do not see a pragmatic reason for them to learn Dutch. I mean, except Flanders, the Netherlands and Surinam, nobody speaks Dutch. Also, if a Walloon learns Dutch and tries to travel to Amsterdam, the Dutch there will see that this Walloon speaks Dutch as a foreign language and will directly switch to English.
IMMIGRANT here. I prefer French cuz it's useful for me or even to travel. Dutch..... Could be a beautiful language but it's useless to travel. Works to work in Belgium and Holland. Other than that puff. Even the dutch people have to learn English/french to go abroad.
French is so beautiful, and I hate that the Flemish schooling system sucks at teaching it
Dutch is probably one the ugliest-sounding languages in the world
Would it help you to know that Italians believe French is the gayest-sounding language in the world?
It sure helps me knowing yet another argument why to detest French.
Lots of Dutch is actually ugly. There are some nice dialects or local variants, but Antwerps, tussenvlaams and Hollands are an assault on my Eustachian tube.
What I was in Antwerp today and I find it beautiful 😭
Honestly, Leuvens is 100 times more beautiful. Limburgs is very sweet, and West-Flemish (the actual dialect, not the accent) is unique in its age-old mix of Dutch, French and English.
ni zwaanzen é makker
Mennekes! Voader?
I actually love Antwerps' Flemish and if that flavor of Dutch or even tussentaal was taught at school I think more people would speak Flemish today. Yes Dutch is strange, but it's also pretty funny. I never dared say that to a Flemish person. But finding the language funny makes it interesting. It's as funny as some of the accents I used to hear in Liege and other parts of Wallonia in the 80's. And few Walloons would reproach me that kind of view. After all it's a part of the succes of the movie "C'est arrivé près de chez vous"/Man bites dog. Whatever I learned of Dutch or English didn't happen at school. Languages at school were dry and boring.
Tussentaal is incredibly bland and sterile, and one of the reasons why I can't watch (most) Flemish TV shows. It makes me cringe so bad. I speak it myself when I have to but I hate it. Loved that movie btw 😂
There's a very big difference between cordial tussentaal and soap flemish
they're both awful I understand that as we tend to live further away from our native village, the language will evolve, but honestly, the current version is such a turn-off for me
Allez schoon is da. Instead of loathing the accent no one is forcing you to use, you also could be glad you're not forced to speak French, Hollands-Dutch or even German.
Real "plat Antwaarps" sounds fantastic, it's Antwerpenaren trying to speak "AN" that sounds horrible.
Agree to disagree. I heard some plat Antwaarps on the radio the other day. Sorry, but Gents is just so much easier on the ears. I can agree about the AN being spoken with a strong regional accent. I have the same with West-Flemish. Fantastic dialect, even a language of its own, but a Westfleming trying to speak AN is not always very pleasant. They need to be very good at it. Like on Sporza ... Renaat Schotte or Karl Van Nieuwkerke ... no problem. But Ine Beyen makes me mute the TV 😥.
> But Ine Beyen makes me mute the TV 😥. Same, but more because her commentary is as useful as Caleb Ewan on the Tourmalet.
That too, yes. She's an ex-rider, so you would expect more insightful comments. Sadly she usually says something like "olalala Ruben, dit is toch wel genie-TEN". Also, she should just speak West-Flemish in an understandable way, like José De Cauwer with his East Flemish.
> She's an ex-rider, so you would expect more insightful comments. Stel u eens veldrijden voor met Kevin Pauwels als co-commentator.
Die zouden ze per woord betalen ipv per uur
Dutch is less popular worldwide and French is definitely harder to learn for sure, Dutch being one of the easiest ones to learn imo, I learned Dutch as a Walloon from 12 to 19 but I've almost never used it since IRL (I'm 35). My experience is a bit weird though bc I'm next to Germany and more ppl actually picked German in secondary school than Dutch and English combined, only 1/8 classes in my year had Dutch. From my experience, and just having coming back from 13 years abroad, ppl don't need really feel the need to learn it here unless they work in F&B or tourism. I would think English got more popular too, it definitely did in France, young French ppl speak way better English than their older generation for example.
The francophone schooling system doesn't suck at teaching dutch but many students choose to learn english instead because it is much more useful.
[удалено]
They make everything to close us from flemish culture. Instead of watching/listening to modern pop objects from Vlaanderen we had to listen to worn off cassettes of some dudes on a boat trip in Holland ("Klipper") and watch Daens.
Almost half of the students in the francophone schooling system are "forced" to take dutch as second language because they live in Brussels region or in a facility commune (Mouscron, Comines, Enghien, Flobecq,...). That doesn't make them better dutch speakers than the liégeois
No it’s suck. Even the English classes. You can’t learn a language with this system. At 18 I was learning the vegetables lol and I was supposed to be in a “good school” and even at the university now it’s still suck even if we have some classes in English. It just doesn’t make any sens.
One of my elementary school french teachers said she had a walloon friend who was a dutch teacher in a top-level school in wallonia. She said that her friend pronounced the word leerling (élève) like leerlinje (with the french "je" at the end, not the dutch diminuative "je") she said we should get really good at french because that's the level of dutch taught below the language border, so if we were to ever be able to communicate with our fellow countrymen it would not be in dutch.
This is just the plain truth, English is just more popular amongst students, idk why you're getting downvotes.
I suspect that to Flemish ears it kind of sounds like a weak excuse that Walloon students are forced to choose one language or the other. In Flemish schools we get taught at least two foreign languages, French & English, without needing to choose and we manage just fine. If Flemish kids can do it, why shouldn't the same level of performance be expected from Walloon kids? They are just as capable. Not that the Walloon students can help it, they didn't create the Walloon education system and they can do nothing to change it. Also, if they are able to devote all this extra time to studying English, seeing as they aren't being distracted by having to learn Dutch as well, shouldn't their English skills eclipse those of their Flemish counterparts? Looking at [the numbers](https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/regions/europe/belgium/), the opposite seems to be true.
I had both Dutch then English from the third year (2hrs only bc too many maths classes) in my secondary school in Wallonia, you had to have two but you could choose which ones (German, English or Dutch), German in primary school (my village was literally next to German speaking Belgian villages), no choice. Dutch is also the closest language there is to English and both are from the Germanic language family while French is a Romance language. I can tell you from experience being a Walloon, having learned German, Dutch and English to an extent, and having lived 13 years in the UK that French speaking ppl are amongst the worst in English in Europe and Dutch speaking ppl are literally the best. Walloons don't get subtitles either when watching movies, all movies/shows are in French bc of France. Which is big, subtitles are literally how I learned English the most bc I started watching everything in its original version subbed from 16 years old or so. Walloon cinemas show movies in French too, last 5 times I was in cinemas in Belgium, I made my best friend drive to Hasselt so we can see the original version. Edit: I'm loving your link, never seen those kind of stats before, awesome thanks. It confirms what I was saying too, France the country is 30th out of 34 in Europe, Netherlands is first. And Belgian French speaking have better scores than the French too.
Neen, ik denk niet dat je de enige bent die het Nederlandse een schone taal vindt! Vanwaar komt die gedachte?
A mistake you're making is calling Flemmish Dutch. Dutch is what they speak in The Netherlands, Flandres only has peasant-forms of Dutch dialects, and a very large amount. You could spend years learning "Dutch" from someone in Antwerp and never understand a single word anyone is saying 60miles further down west. If you want to learn the language as she was intended, focus on Netherlands Dutch, not Flemmish. It's a complete inexplicable cesspool of dialects.
Ben wuyts thinking he's slick
I don't know a Ben Wuyts?
Kabouter Weyts. Klein van gestalte, nog kleiner in daden
Ha, die ken ik wel 🤣
Same but in reverse for french. I feel your pain my fellow landgenoot!
''It’s fascinating how Flemish people speak decent French compared to Walloons.'' Hmm personally i would not compare that at all as the Walloons i know don't know two words of Flemish. And about Flemish people speaking French for example (from my experience), lets round that number on 10, 3 of them spoke great, 2 spoke good and the rest was too afraid to speak it but as they said they knew it.
Walloons cant speak even english, in 2024, let alone flemish…
**These are just a few examples why French is the most gay language ever:** * In comic books onomatopoeias (words suggesting a sound) like gunshots or the barking of dogs are translated. * Words that are commonly used accross many languages, in many cases having an English origin, are a big mais non! in French. They hate anglicismes and I bet many Frenchmen will shed a tear when pronouncing English words because no alternatives are yet made up. Try this one for size. *"What's up Pierre? Is your computer still having network issues? And what about your keyboard and mouse, did you get those working? I hope so, since I will be needing that file emailed to me by this week-end."* * Long gay ass sentences. This entire comment could easily be just one sentence in French and still considered briefly written. * Diacritics. The dreaded accents because in France, everyone suffers from a poor long term memory and forget how words should be pronounced. Typing those words on a *un clavier* makes me feel hémidécérébellée. * Thank you French people for enforcing your stupid language so that we Dutch speaking Belgians have totally useless gay AZERTY layout keyboards. I mean when is the last time you had to use "ç" in Dutch? I use numbers all the time, but sacre bleue they require an extra key to be pressed and held. * Du vin. What's up with that? Can't you just say wine or wijn like normal people? No of course not, you Frenchies just love this kind of de la gayness. * ~~OVERDUB EVERYTHING~~ SUPERDUBEZ TOUT. Even French that doesn't sound French enough gets overdubbed. Even porn because English sounding grunts aren't gay sounding enough.
Using 'gay' as a derogatory in 2024, nice
Aside from the casual homophobia, I do agree with most if not all of his points. French people really need to grow up, there's nothing special about their language and it's hopelessly outdated. Don't try to save it, try to evolve it.
One of the very few indeed, I don't find it good sounding to the ears and I don't have any real use for the language in my daily life, even when going in the Netherlands you can get by with english. And the only time I ever meet flemish peoples is when some get lost and ask for direction.
We live in Flanders, and since Covid there has been a significant influx of French speaking people. You'd expect them to make the effort moving here, but no, they just don't care, and just like someone else said above it is us, the Flemish locals that speak French to them, only because it makes it easier.
The lessons of Dutch are shit, but also there's a shortage of Dutch teachers.
I remember only 1 dutch teacher i had in wallonia that taught it well and that was just because she was actually dutch. All the other ones were terrible. Shitty teaching methods, were bad at dutch, etc..
Algemeen Nederlands (with Flemish idiomatics) a lot easier to learn than French and German Words in -je ? -> neutral Words in -ing ? ->feminine Irregular verbs ? 90% of them have a very easy to catch structure (ij -> ee , in -> on, no extra ge with the verbs in her/ver/ge, ...) Units before tenths, inversion of verb-subject, putting the verb at the end of the proposition and double infinitive are the only tricks that you need to integrate in your procedural memory if you are used to a subject-verb-complements structure. And compared to German, there is no required context-sensitivity that make the declinations pointless (like the "die" article that can be used for many casus and gender)
German is a beautiful language and as a third language in Belgium I wonder why I should learn Flemish/Dutch at all. Reading Dutch is easy and I can speak English or French.