h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Wuld that be except for the Belgians that speak Flemish?

All Belgians can be obnoxious at times. I was there on holiday, and some of them just flatly refused to speak Dutch. Destroy em all!

Went over there, spoke french at them, they knew what I was on about. Possibly they call it flemish as to not be associated with the french

Belgium has two official languages, 33% of Belgians (Walloons) speak French, the rest (Flemish) speak a dialect of Dutch.

Just one of those little facts...

So the chances of me meeting at least one flemish speaker during my stay was greater then meeting only french speakers...

So it would appear, although it all depends on location and stuff like that. Little facts like that are useful on pub quizzes, so I learn them...

That's interesting. I've heard that people in France aren't terribly friendly. I've been there a couple of times, but years ago and didn't get talking to too many French people.

I've heard that they won't speak English, even though they're better at it than we are.

How's that work then???

I couldn't get French people to speak in English. The family that we stayed with didn't seem to be near the centre of town, or have much contact with English so there excused from the whole not understanding us (luckily I was with Sam, who was excellent at French) but others in places where you can imagine lots of english - i.e. Euro disney, didn't bother.

Well I heard there was an element of that it's their country and we can't really be bothered learning French and just expect them to learn our language and speak it in their country.

Can kinda see their point, but surely there's a balance?

Ahh, the balance. Like when a French-speaking tourist comes up to you in the street and says "Excuse moi madamoiselle, ou est la gare s'il vous plait?". Chances are your average English person goes "SORRY. I. CAN'T. SPEAK. FRENCH. CAN. YOU. SPEAK. ENGLISH?"

Yet that's not seen as obnoxious as we view English as the so-called 'lingua franca' of Planet Earth (It's not, 12% of peopl speak Mandarin Chinese as a first language, 5% Spanish and only a pitiful 4% English). There's nothing obnoxious about someone not being happy when you expect them to speak a foreign language on their own patch. Go up to a Frenchman and try speaking in French. So long as you give it a go they're usually perfectly polite.

true. We're just so bad about it here. When so many countries teach their kids English from as soon as they can talk, and we get to learn enough French to ask for a glass of Coke and say we like listening to a certain band when we're 11. There's something not right there definately.

We totally handle it wrong here I think. The whole shout slowly in English to someone isn't going to get them to be friendly.

Glad you understand my point!

Oh, man. I had a really hard time trying to communicate with a guy at the ticket booth in a country railway station in Belgium. The conversation went something like this:

Ralph: Do you speak Dutch?
Guy: Yes, a bit.
Ralph: Can you sell me two tickets to Rotterdam?
Guy: No, no, I'm sorry, I can't do that.
R: Okay, can you sell me two tickets to Liege?
G: No, no, I'm sorry, can't sell you tickets to Rotterdam.
R: NO! LIEGE! LUIK! I WANT TICKETS TO LIEGE!
G: Oh, right. *prints ticket*
R: Is this two tickets?
G: Yes, one way ticket, look,*points vaguely at ticket*
R: I asked for 'two' tickets.
G: Yes, yes, look.
R: But I'm with a friend! I need two tickets!!!!!(resorts to French)Deux! Duex tickets! Je suis avec une copine!


And so on, and so forth.

Mad!!

Quit mad. Luckily, the girl in Liege was more helpful, she even gave us a timetable with the trains we needed.

That's good news. I think some people are unhelpful on purpose.

Yeah, maybe the guy was obnoxious cos I speak Dutch.

Well that's not your fault really if you *are* Dutch.

I blame his parents...

Well that's one way of looking at it. Though they didn't exactly plan to "make him Dutch".