Posted by 1. The crazy translations and road signs
Since we moved to Zaventem, we live quite close to the outer ring of Brussels. Once I was refilling for my car in the Shell station of Zaventem (right after the exit of the ring) , a lady came to me and asked in French “I am lost, I cannot find the way to go back to Paris”, she is a mid-aged woman who didn’t seem to travel a lot, she explained she was in Brussels for a funeral. I showed her the map that she had to follow the ring and go towards direction of Mons. “Yes Mons, I passed that city when I came, but I cannot find the sign to Mons on the highway!” Then I had to explain that we are now standing on Flemish commune, all the road signs must be displayed in Flemish, the Flemish name of Mons is actually “Bergen”, which literally means mountains in both languages! She felt astonished about my explanation and I think she sweared she would never come to Belgium again.
In fact I also found it quite amusing to translate a city, a country or even a name!
Do you know the following translation of the following cities in Belgium:
Luik – Liège
Malines – Mechelen
Tienen – Tierlemont
Leuven – Louvain
Anvers – Antewerpen
Gent – Gand
In fact, not all the city names are translated, for instance Louvain-la-Neuve, maybe because it was built quite recently. However, if you walk in Brussels, you will find that every commune, every street, even every single square are translated in both languages!
Elsene – Ixelles
Auderghem – Oudergem
Uccle – Ukkle
Sint-Pieters-Woluwe – Woluwe-Saint-Pierre
Street:
Chausée de Wavre 1543 – Waversesteenweg 1543
Squares:
Grand Place – Grote Markt
A French city: Lille – Rijsel
My previous manager grew up in Lille, a city in North France not so far from Belgian border, the first time he drove to Belgium was quite some years back when GPS and smartphone were not so popular, most people relied on the road signs. When he drove back and was passing the west Flanders to France border, he could NOT find a sign for Lille! After he asked someone from the fuel station, he got to know the name is “Rijsel” in Flemish as Lille was part of Flanders long time ago. The name Rijsel comes from ter ijsel (at the island). The French equivalent has the same meaning: Lille comes from l’île (the island).
After a while, the federal government did a bit of effort to avoid confusion, they added on the sign Lille in the brackets.
2. Flemish language vs French
Once I was in Beijing airport, I met a man whose name is Mike who was flying to Paris, when he knew that I lived in Belgium, he told me an amazing story.
He was visiting a small Flemish city and had trouble reading the instructions on the parking machine. So he went to a lady nearby and asked her in French “Could you please help me using this parking machine?” Rudely, the lady first said something in Flemish which obviously Mike could not understand, then she said in English, ” This is a Flemish city, you should speak Flemish, I don’t speak French. ” Mike was quite upset, he went back to the car, after a minute, the same lady came and started to become quite friendly. She explained, because she saw his car plate was from France, not from Belgium, she helped Mike attentively with perfect French! She later explained that Wallons in Belgium should work harder and also learn Dutch language, they are lazy etc… Since he is French (or foreigner), it was not applicable.
Mike’s reaction:
The official language is still a sensitive topic in Belgium, Zaventem is a Flemish commune, but because it is so close to Brussels, many people speak also French or maybe have French as first language. In the city hall, you will see sign everywhere “We helpen u graag in het Nederlands” – “We’d like to help you in Dutch”.
3. The invented numbers – “septante” and “nonante”
French numbers are quite complex and long to pronounce.
Seventy in French is soixante-dix – 60 plus 10, in Belgium, it is simplified to septante.
Eighty in French is quatre-vingts which means 4 times 20
Ninety in French is quatre-vingt-dix which means 4 times 20 plus 10, however in Belgium, ninety is simplified to nonante.
When asked the year when I was born (1990) the correct way to say it in French is dix-neuf quatre-vingt-dix, but in Belgium, I can simplify to dix neuf nonante.
But French people who come to Belgium cannot understand nonante, they need some time to adapt, but I’m sure they’d be happy to.
In fact <“septante”and “nonante” are not only used in Belgium, they are also used in Switzerland, moreover, Swiss people also simplified “quatre-vingt” to “huitante”, more logical, isn’t it?
4. Misusage of “pouvoir” instead of “savoir”
So far my French teachers are a mix of French and Belgian (wallon) ones, there are many funny stories regarding the Belgian French.
One of the French teachers Ben told us that the first day he came to Belgium, he almost committed a crime.
He went to a bank in Brussels and asked the person working in the counter to open a bank account, he replied “Excusez-moi monsieur, je n’e sais pas faire!”.
The above sentence in Belgium it means: sorry I cannot do this, but in France it means sorry I don’t know how to do it.
So Ben explained to the person again what he wanted, the guy replied the same thing, this continued or 3 times. In the end Ben was so upset he wanted to call that guy stupid. When he went back and told this story to his colleagues, they explained that the Belgians mix the two words savoir and pouvoir (to know and can), probably some Flemish guy mixed the Dutch word “kunnen and kennen” when translate.
But I don’t consider it a mistake, more of different way of using the words, I have a Wallon friend who is a native French speaker, he also uses “savoir” in all conditions.
5. “Une fois, une fois…”
The French don’t use une fois a lot, only in sentence like “Une fois arrivé, tu m’appellerais”, which means “After you arrive, call me”.
Belgian people add une fois everywhere in the sentence, so often that French people mock them, or use it as one of the symbol when they want to imitate a Belgian person. “Tu peux venir une fois?” “Tu me donnes la main une fois?”…
The use of une fois (“once”) in mid-sentence, especially in Brussels, is a direct translation of Dutch “eens”. French people who want to imitate the Belgian accent often use a lot of “une fois” at the end of the sentences, which is often wrong: “Viens une fois ici, literally from the Dutch : “Kom eens hier” (“Come once here”). “Une fois” cannot really be translated in other languages; its function is to soften the meaning of the sentence. The English equivalent would be “Could you come here?” or “Why don’t you come here?”. According to Wikipedia
Once I was driving to work, the radio was playing “la loi de murphy” from Angèle, afterwards, the two girls in the radio said “this beauty of this song is the mix of French and English lyrics, ‘One time, never give it up… ‘, imagine if she sings ‘une fois, ne quitte jamais..’, it will be so ugly, so Belgium!”
7. ‘File’ (traffic jam) and ‘ring’ (the road around a city)
If you listen to French speaking radio while driving in Belgium, you will often hear: “Il y a 200 km de files sur le ring extérieur de Bruxelles…”
“File” and “ring” are both quite Belgian as they come from Dutch word, the corresponding French words are “embouteillage” and “périphérie”.
Similarly, waiting in the lines in French is “faire la queue”, but in Belgian “faire la file”.
8. Il y a une bricque dans le ventre
The above expression means the people who absolutely want to have their own property, like building a house, buy a car etc. It is true, if you are working in Belgium, people around you are either saving for buying a house/appartement, or just bought one, or is in the process of construction a house, or planning to move to a bigger house. Belgian, especially Flemings have big houses and nice gardens, they spend quite some time working in the house, because “il y a une brick dans la ventre”! Check more about Flemish people in my other blog post: Get to know about Flemish people
Are you a French person who just moved to Belgium and have some surprising findings? Do you miss some things which are not so common in Belgium, like the bread, pâté, maybe cheese? Don’t hesitate to write in the comment!
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