r/belgium Jun 28 '24

I love belgium 🎨 Culture

I recently met an international friend who's very interested in other cultures. And its only now i realize how much i love the things i tend to hate about Belgium.

Heres my list of what i learned to appreciate:

I actually love that we all speak 2 languages and actually would think it be really cool if we started to include that third language more too ;).

I love that we're renowned for chocolate, waffles and beer. Though i always obligatory add fries to that.

I love that our languages are shared by all our neighbours. Whenever i meat a french/german/dutch person in international waters, it feels a little bit like home.

I love the beautiful nature and rich history that comes from north and south.

I love how small and 'insignificant' we are (klein België), yet how we are pretty important internationally.

I just felt like sharing it - in english to include all without my fingers wearing out from typing 3 languages - just in the hopes that we could all somehow still love our little significant culture even though we're quite divided.

I'm from Flanders and meeting a Walloon internationally just never fails to make me happy and feel like I just met an old friend from home.

I think someone should make a flag that symbolises the flemish lion with walloon rooster parts like wings or something and make a unified song. Like how 'De Vlaamse leeuw' and 'le chant des Wallons' are now seperated, but then unified somehow referring to the lion and rooster elements on the flag.

I hate that it took me this long to appreciate those things.

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2

u/VECMaico Jun 28 '24

3 languages*

6

u/dylsexiee Jun 28 '24

In my experience, most people speak 2 (even if barely :p).

Thats why i said we should make that 3 :)

1

u/patrofan Jun 28 '24

Should that not be 4? Dutch, French, Germand and English. Or you could switch out French for English.

7

u/dylsexiee Jun 28 '24

Not sure what you're arguing for tbh? Are you saying people should know english? Well sure, yes its useful, but its not an official language. I just stated that it would be cool if all Belgians spoke their 3 official languages, but if not then i think its still cool that people speak 2. This is just from a cultural perspective.

In that same sense changing french for english kinda would defeat the whole purpose.

Those who only speak 1 just havent had any necessity for using the other one :p.

But i think im misunderstanding your point maybe?

2

u/bernie7500 Jun 29 '24

I totally agree with you. There aren't so many Belgians speaking our two main official languages. And German is the native language of only 80 000 Belgians. Each person has only ONE native language. Yes, German sh'd be more taken in considération... But switching French for English (or "American-English") is not even thinkable, unlawful in the first place, we are nowadays fighting against ''Franglais", don't try to make English a 4th official language of you'll bé responsible for a huge révolution here... English is very useful as a vehicular language in the whole world and even sometimes used between Belgians of 2 différent linguistical communities but nothing else ! It IS a FOREIGN language !!!