Just a lunch...
Well as you know
Last week I had a lunch with my manager Pascal, colleagues Bram and Peter at the cafeteria just around the project site building.
Bram is a native Dutch speaker, but manages English very well, and French rather mediocre. So I always speak to him in English. Then Pascal joined us in the table. Pascal is native French speaking, but manages English and Dutch just fine. Naturally I would speak French to Pascal since I am good in French (well if you don’t know my profile, I can also speak good English, Malay and three Chinese languages, and basic-medium Dutch as I am currently attending Dutch night course in school).
Fine, but Pascal would speak in Dutch with Bram since they both speak good Dutch. I couldn’t catch everything they were talking about, since my Dutch is not that sophisticated yet. So in the end we all switched to talk in English. Sounds a better solution no?
Not until Peter joined us though. Like Bram, Peter is native Dutch speaking, but he speaks good English and OK French. Since Bram and Peter are Dutch speaking natively, it would be weird to talk in English, so they would converse in Dutch. As this went on, Pascal and I would then do it in French. Then I would talk to Peter and Bram in English, while Pascal in Dutch with them.
Right, so it was a lunch with three languages switching non-stop around the table. For god sake we were just 4 people. How funny it is this petite country of
posted by Ah Khang at
9:47 AM
2 Comments:
Hmmm...
What you mention as being "a lot of annoyances" is instead the demonstration of our capacity, in Belgium, to live as real Europeans! And I am proud of it, like many other Belgians! I am familiar of parties with Belgian friends that are really like an European summit - with a mix of six or seven languages - and no translation facilities :-) This is maybe one of the reasons why Belgium is attractive for foreign people living in our country (?)
Unfortunately, disputes in Belgium are not coming from "language" problems; that's not the issue. It is more complicated. First to remember that Belgium is an artificial construction, that was put in place by foreign nations 176 years ago for political reasons. I also have the feeling that frustration plays a role in our current situation. To say it shortly: the "dutch" part of the country is maybe taking its revenge as a reaction to older periods, when they were (wrongly) considered as the "parent pauvre" of our country...
By
Anonymous, at 4:41 PM
Hi thanks for the comment!
Indeed the problem could be traced back long ago with all history events and the switch of powers between the two regions. However it's undeniable that many people are taking the language issue into account, like owning an apartment in Flanders requires the knowledge of Dutch language, or accusation of French speaking people are not capable intelligently on language skills. That have certainly spiced up the controversy between the two camps.
I myself am not a Belgian, so I am not picking position but am only surprise to see how things progress nowadays in the country. The region frontier seems so similar to language frontier nowadays. I really like this country as like you said, it's a European summit everywhere. Hopefully it will survive the current crisis of forming the government!
By
Ah Khang, at 10:22 PM
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