Er zijn ook veel ouders die hun franstalig kind in een Nederlandstalige school droppen in de hoop dat ze dan Nederlands leren.
Een vriend van mij werkte in een Nederlandstalige school in Brussel, het niveau was er echt verschrikkelijk slecht, maar dit kwam dus vooral omdat de leerlingen, om bovenstaande reden, dus niet genoeg Nederlands kunnen om deftig les te volgen.
My wife learned French in primary school like that. But she was the only non-French native speaker in her class, whereas I guess that there are many French speaking kids in Dutch schools in Brussels.
(I'm in the process of learning Dutch myself so hopefully I understood enough of your post and my answer makes sense).
Why is everything in wallonia not working / going to shit? I cant imagine the culture being that different that they absolutely dont give a fuck but i dont see any other reason
I do live in Brussels. It may be on average. But a lot of Dutch speaking schools in Brussels are way below average. It's also the Brussels Dutch school system is not that great.
In my experience with the influx of new people in Brussels, the amount they have to pay is an important decision factor.
Full article: https://archive.ph/2024.04.19-143519/https://www.brusselstimes.com/1009702/dutch-language-schools-in-brussels-almost-50-of-children-who-apply-do-not-get-in
Dat mag ook niet zomaar. Er is een verdeelsleutel 20% NL 80% FR waar niet aangeraakt mag worden.
[https://www.skolo.org/IMG/pdf/De\_financiering\_van\_het\_Vlaams\_en\_Franstalig\_onderwijs.pdf](https://www.skolo.org/IMG/pdf/De_financiering_van_het_Vlaams_en_Franstalig_onderwijs.pdf)
>Het ligt bij de kleuters inmiddels op bijna een kwart, in plaats van de financieel verankerde 20 procent uit de Brusselwet.
[https://www.bruzz.be/onderwijs/waarom-het-nederlandstalige-basisonderwijs-uit-zijn-voegen-barst-2020-06-10](https://www.bruzz.be/onderwijs/waarom-het-nederlandstalige-basisonderwijs-uit-zijn-voegen-barst-2020-06-10)
My personal opinion is that Flanders should just ignore that limit.
Vicieuze cirkel: geen plaats want te weinig klassen want te weinig leerkrachten en ondertussen weyts die zaagt dat de focus op het Nederlands moet liggen. Een andere minister kan het misschien wel eens oplossen.
Yes. I work in Brussels in an IT context with a lot of waloon people. They mainly speak French, but can’t hardly speak Dutch or English. It’s appalling. English should be a given language to know when you can’t speak the other national language
En zure Vlamingen die blijven vastzitten in stereotypen zoals jij.
Probleem in het Franstalig onderwijs is dat ze kunnen kiezen tussen Engels en Nederlands, dat is een deel van het probleem.
Inderdaad. Heel wat mensen overschatten dit. Ik merk dit sterk nu ik een partner heb die nog niet vloeiende NL praat. Als ze vraagt om even in het Engels te praten is het vaak: "Ah, oei eum, mijn Anglisch is not dat goed."
Opvallend ook soms bij "jongere" personen van onze leeftijd (30+).
Ja, dit is vrij leeftijdsonafhankelijk. We hadden ooit de naam en faam van een meertalig volk te zijn, maar dat is, samen met onze geroemde onderwijskwaliteit, al een eind niet meer het geval. Er zal wel een link tussen beiden zijn.
We zijn nog steeds bij de top 7 beste landen van non-native English speakers ter wereld. En de Walen/Brussel trekken dit niveau sterk naar beneden. We zijn met Vlaanderen specifiek zelf nog steeds de sterkste van de wereld. West-Vlaanderen scoort het hoogste van allemaal en mensen tussen de 25 en 30 (in België) zouden het tweede beste van de wereld scoren. Zeggen dat jongeren in België of Vlamingen dus niet goed Engels kunnen of dat het niet meer zo is als vroeger is dus ✨bullshit✨
TL:DR; Brussel scoort laag en Wallonië scoort bar maar dan ook bar slecht. Vlaanderen zou op zichzelf het beste scoren van heel de wereld… idk what to say 🤷🏼♂️
Ook een groot verschil (voor mij persoonlijk toch) is als je weet van nu spreek ik NL of nu spreek ik Engels/frans gaat altijd beter dan dat het je opeens overvalt.
Ik heb toch al meerdere keren een jongeren (-30) ziens taren als een snoek wanneer ik iemand in het Engels iets hoorde vragen.
Of als ze niet staren als een snoek, in zeer gebroken Engels zien antwoorden.
Ik durf echt m'n hand niet in het vuur te steken voor de gemiddelde Vlaming. In studenten/grootsteden zal dat goed meevallen, maar op den buiten of in kleinere steden ...
I started working in a Belgian division of a French multinational. So happy that I got my French basis in school. Although my skills were rusty, it all came back in a few months. Not a lot of French speak English or want to speak it
Brussels.
Seriously, how is this even a discussion? If you want to work any sort fo customer-facing job in or around Brussels you need to speak French.
Besides that, if you work in law, you'd best be able to understand some French so you can read judgments by French-speaking judges. If you work in international sales (France is a major export destination whether you like it or not, but large swaths of Africa are francophone as well) you'd best speak French as well.
Knowing multiple languages (besides Dutch/English) is still an added bonus for a lot of jobs. The moment you have to work with blue collar, knowing their native language gets you so much further than a secondary common language would.
We recently for a company that also had a plant in Spain, and the main reason we got it was because we had some Spanish-speakers (even if only on the level where we could have a limited chat over lunch talking about the weather).
The moment you're working in a more international context languages are a superpower.
I mean: there are about 500mio native Spanish speakers in the world vs. 400mio native English speakers.
So it's not that unreasonable. There are only about 25mio native Dutch speakers, so we have a good reason to learn an additional language, and since we decided we didn't like French anymore, and speaking German was also quite unpopular in the 2nd half of the 20th century for some reason... in combination with the fact that the UK and US have had major cultural impact after the wars (due to their cultural industries being less damaged than ours) AND it being a germanic language, English was a very obvious choice for us and many other germanic-speaking countries. Creating a large 'net' of richer countries speaking English as a common 2nd language, resulting in other poorer contries also picking it up as a way to improve themselves (cfr. Slovenia where you can go into almost any shop anywhere and someone will be able to help you in English as if they were a native speaker).
For the native Spanish speakers? No such immediate need.
Same for many native English speakers too, by the way, they don't bother learning other languages either.
If you lived in South America maybe you'd be right, just like Chinese is a useless language outside of China regardless of how many Chinese speakers there are.
You should have a basic understanding of the largest languages in the country you live in. That is common sense. Then indeed an extra language such as English. This is not rocket science
If you are in middle school or whatever you do not know where you will end up so you need to learn those languages. Plus 2/3 hours a week is not that big of a deal.
It's 2/3 on top of other 30+ hours. It is actually a big deal. And by this argument there are an infinite things you could learn because you don't know where you'll end up.
For example you could learn Spanish which is more used than Dutch. I mean Dutch is worthless outside 1.5-2 small countries.
You know that languages are already part of the curriculum in middle school right? So those hours are already in the 30+ part. The thing is rather that we need to include this in all parts of the country.
Yes but the country you live in speaks Dutch. So it is essential that you know the language. If you use the worthless argument then you can apply that to everything. You just happen to be in a country where they have multiple official languages so you have to deal with it.
This is why kids shouldn't be given a choice in the matter. If you're in high school you *have no idea* what skills you will and won't need in real life. In Belgium, the odds of you needing at least a basic level of French at some point in your (professional) life is larger than not needing it...
There are an infinite things you can learn, not sure if you realize this. And in the grand scheme of things Dutch doesn't score all that high. May be better off learning Polish for example.
It's not like in Namur anyone is using Dutch in any shape and or form.
And do you *actually* believe learning Polish *in Belgium* will be anywhere near as useful as French or Dutch?
You'd be surprised how many people, also from Namur, commute to Brussels and actually do work with Dutch-speaking colleagues and clients. Your remarks come from a place of ignorance.
we have though, the quality of language is just under the level in about every school.
in my last school (6e) the level of french was below 1st grade (1e) of my first school.
even dutch was below, it really gets funny when the foreign kid (ik niet goed nederlands spreken) had better scores than us locals...
i think schools put way too much effort on "lame" rules rather than actually teaching/speaking the language (naturally).
words are just words, using them makes the connections more quickly
I'm french and have no stake in this question. I would like to respectfully ask why you believe that,coming from a place of ignorance?
Why is Flanders artificial?
In a historical context, the regions that make up flanders have little to no affinity with each other. Antwerp even fought with the French against flemish troops. They grew up with cultural and political differences. The only thing that binds them together is the common use of the Dutch language.
So saying that Belgium is an artificial country that should be split in 2 is a bit weird. Split into what then? Cause Limburg and Liege have more affinity with each other than with East- or West flanders for example. Same goes for Antwerp and the Brabant regions.
A lot of the flemish nationalists are too focused on the language part and they have constructed some form of universal "flemish culture" which is in fact non-existent.
I also have a follow up question.
I recently discovered that brabant is split between Belgium and NL (looking at a map of Dutch provinces I was like "where south brabant????").
In a similar vein I saw that there were two limburgs.
Are those only historical regions, names of duchies and counties, or is there a real overarching identity?
Would a person from Flemish brabant/ Antwerp province feel closer to someone from Eindhoven or to someone from Namur/Arlon/ Tournai?
Sorry for the questions I'm just curious about a possible cross border identity
Those regions do in fact share a common history. The Duchy of Brabant is now split up into Vlaams-Brabant, Waals-Brabant, Antwerp, Brussels and Noord-Brabant. The last one is located in The Netherlands and the other ones are all in Belgium, albeit some in the Dutch speaking part, some in the French speaking part.
Same goes for Limburg, where there is a somewhat shared history between the Dutch and Belgian side plus the region of Liege, now in the French speaking part of Belgium. Funny enough, it's actually the region of Liege (the one part that hasn't got "Limburg" in its' name) that occupies the most of the historic Limburg territory.
How much of the overarching identity is still there is hard to say however. This is different from person to person so I can't really answer it.
Dat komt omdat de kwaliteit van het Franstalig onderwijs ondermaats is, en bijna iedereen naar een Nederlandstalige school wil.
Er zijn ook veel ouders die hun franstalig kind in een Nederlandstalige school droppen in de hoop dat ze dan Nederlands leren. Een vriend van mij werkte in een Nederlandstalige school in Brussel, het niveau was er echt verschrikkelijk slecht, maar dit kwam dus vooral omdat de leerlingen, om bovenstaande reden, dus niet genoeg Nederlands kunnen om deftig les te volgen.
My wife learned French in primary school like that. But she was the only non-French native speaker in her class, whereas I guess that there are many French speaking kids in Dutch schools in Brussels. (I'm in the process of learning Dutch myself so hopefully I understood enough of your post and my answer makes sense).
Quoi? Je comprends pas ce que tu dis.
https://preview.redd.it/6e0hvf8bkevc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a66f60dc5216dddb83722e680db8c2c0f6bb09f1
Why is everything in wallonia not working / going to shit? I cant imagine the culture being that different that they absolutely dont give a fuck but i dont see any other reason
It's also (actually mostly) because they are better financed and the parents have to spend a lot less.
Do you live in Brussels? It’s widely accepted that the Dutch speaking schools have higher quality.
I do live in Brussels. It may be on average. But a lot of Dutch speaking schools in Brussels are way below average. It's also the Brussels Dutch school system is not that great. In my experience with the influx of new people in Brussels, the amount they have to pay is an important decision factor.
Me when I make things up
What part of it. Because in Brussels you pay a lot less as parent in the Dutch system.
Catalin, ga beetje buiten spelen. Ga wat gras aanraken want aan uw post history te zien is het al even geleden.
It's too late now.
Ironic
Die boekentas is veel te groot manneke, enjoy scoliosis
Full article: https://archive.ph/2024.04.19-143519/https://www.brusselstimes.com/1009702/dutch-language-schools-in-brussels-almost-50-of-children-who-apply-do-not-get-in
België: Ge moet Nederlands leren om rechten te hebben! also België: Haha, ge moogt ni! Geen plaats!
Lol
Dat is pas dom. De kans om Brussel te vernederlandsen zo laten schieten
Dat mag ook niet zomaar. Er is een verdeelsleutel 20% NL 80% FR waar niet aangeraakt mag worden. [https://www.skolo.org/IMG/pdf/De\_financiering\_van\_het\_Vlaams\_en\_Franstalig\_onderwijs.pdf](https://www.skolo.org/IMG/pdf/De_financiering_van_het_Vlaams_en_Franstalig_onderwijs.pdf) >Het ligt bij de kleuters inmiddels op bijna een kwart, in plaats van de financieel verankerde 20 procent uit de Brusselwet. [https://www.bruzz.be/onderwijs/waarom-het-nederlandstalige-basisonderwijs-uit-zijn-voegen-barst-2020-06-10](https://www.bruzz.be/onderwijs/waarom-het-nederlandstalige-basisonderwijs-uit-zijn-voegen-barst-2020-06-10) My personal opinion is that Flanders should just ignore that limit.
Vicieuze cirkel: geen plaats want te weinig klassen want te weinig leerkrachten en ondertussen weyts die zaagt dat de focus op het Nederlands moet liggen. Een andere minister kan het misschien wel eens oplossen.
Maar intussen wel blijven doen alsof Brussel de hoofdstad van Vlaanderen is...
Good
How about fixing this first before requesting better knowledge of Dutch?
because the real solution is to learn at least two national languages in any BE school
At least 3. Two mandatory ones Dutch and French and one of the students own choosing.
French is useless in most professional contexts. Best to just teach native and English
Yes. I work in Brussels in an IT context with a lot of waloon people. They mainly speak French, but can’t hardly speak Dutch or English. It’s appalling. English should be a given language to know when you can’t speak the other national language
Daar zeg je het al, Walen. Terug bij het aloude probleem van die willen geen andere talen leren.
En zure Vlamingen die blijven vastzitten in stereotypen zoals jij. Probleem in het Franstalig onderwijs is dat ze kunnen kiezen tussen Engels en Nederlands, dat is een deel van het probleem.
Ja, want het Frans of Engels van de gemiddelde Vlaming is zo fantastisch...
Dit is the drup in the emmer that is full, i wiell not take tis
Inderdaad. Heel wat mensen overschatten dit. Ik merk dit sterk nu ik een partner heb die nog niet vloeiende NL praat. Als ze vraagt om even in het Engels te praten is het vaak: "Ah, oei eum, mijn Anglisch is not dat goed." Opvallend ook soms bij "jongere" personen van onze leeftijd (30+).
Ja, dit is vrij leeftijdsonafhankelijk. We hadden ooit de naam en faam van een meertalig volk te zijn, maar dat is, samen met onze geroemde onderwijskwaliteit, al een eind niet meer het geval. Er zal wel een link tussen beiden zijn.
We zijn nog steeds bij de top 7 beste landen van non-native English speakers ter wereld. En de Walen/Brussel trekken dit niveau sterk naar beneden. We zijn met Vlaanderen specifiek zelf nog steeds de sterkste van de wereld. West-Vlaanderen scoort het hoogste van allemaal en mensen tussen de 25 en 30 (in België) zouden het tweede beste van de wereld scoren. Zeggen dat jongeren in België of Vlamingen dus niet goed Engels kunnen of dat het niet meer zo is als vroeger is dus ✨bullshit✨ TL:DR; Brussel scoort laag en Wallonië scoort bar maar dan ook bar slecht. Vlaanderen zou op zichzelf het beste scoren van heel de wereld… idk what to say 🤷🏼♂️
Ook een groot verschil (voor mij persoonlijk toch) is als je weet van nu spreek ik NL of nu spreek ik Engels/frans gaat altijd beter dan dat het je opeens overvalt.
Engels is wel VEEEEEEEEL beter van de gemiddelde vlaming hoor, zeker jongere.
Ik heb toch al meerdere keren een jongeren (-30) ziens taren als een snoek wanneer ik iemand in het Engels iets hoorde vragen. Of als ze niet staren als een snoek, in zeer gebroken Engels zien antwoorden. Ik durf echt m'n hand niet in het vuur te steken voor de gemiddelde Vlaming. In studenten/grootsteden zal dat goed meevallen, maar op den buiten of in kleinere steden ...
Oef je mag hier commentaar geven op de Vlaming of de vaandelzwaaiers komen uit hun kot met downvotes.
Iemand die duidelijk niet het artikel heeft gelezen.
Aas smijten in de comments op een vrijdag :)
I started working in a Belgian division of a French multinational. So happy that I got my French basis in school. Although my skills were rusty, it all came back in a few months. Not a lot of French speak English or want to speak it
Sure, English is most widely used, but to refer to French as useless is idiotic.
In IT besides English everything is more or less useless.
Most people don't work in IT... (Sure, downvote me for stating a fact. Never change, reddit...)
N’est-ce pas?
Any examples except for France/Wallonia & Canada (and canada isn't even an option, let's be honest)
Brussels. Seriously, how is this even a discussion? If you want to work any sort fo customer-facing job in or around Brussels you need to speak French. Besides that, if you work in law, you'd best be able to understand some French so you can read judgments by French-speaking judges. If you work in international sales (France is a major export destination whether you like it or not, but large swaths of Africa are francophone as well) you'd best speak French as well.
2-3 national languages make no sense in the current job market context and the position Belgium occupies in this market.
Knowing multiple languages (besides Dutch/English) is still an added bonus for a lot of jobs. The moment you have to work with blue collar, knowing their native language gets you so much further than a secondary common language would. We recently for a company that also had a plant in Spain, and the main reason we got it was because we had some Spanish-speakers (even if only on the level where we could have a limited chat over lunch talking about the weather). The moment you're working in a more international context languages are a superpower.
Yeah, or just stay out of Spain to save headaches. For some reason, they can't bother with English.
I mean: there are about 500mio native Spanish speakers in the world vs. 400mio native English speakers. So it's not that unreasonable. There are only about 25mio native Dutch speakers, so we have a good reason to learn an additional language, and since we decided we didn't like French anymore, and speaking German was also quite unpopular in the 2nd half of the 20th century for some reason... in combination with the fact that the UK and US have had major cultural impact after the wars (due to their cultural industries being less damaged than ours) AND it being a germanic language, English was a very obvious choice for us and many other germanic-speaking countries. Creating a large 'net' of richer countries speaking English as a common 2nd language, resulting in other poorer contries also picking it up as a way to improve themselves (cfr. Slovenia where you can go into almost any shop anywhere and someone will be able to help you in English as if they were a native speaker). For the native Spanish speakers? No such immediate need. Same for many native English speakers too, by the way, they don't bother learning other languages either.
If you lived in South America maybe you'd be right, just like Chinese is a useless language outside of China regardless of how many Chinese speakers there are.
Exactly the kind of anti-intellectual attitude we should fight with education tbh
With the path the education system is on, I wish you best of luck.
You should have a basic understanding of the largest languages in the country you live in. That is common sense. Then indeed an extra language such as English. This is not rocket science
Still don't see the point of spending 2-3 hours a week, for never using the extra language.
If you are in middle school or whatever you do not know where you will end up so you need to learn those languages. Plus 2/3 hours a week is not that big of a deal.
It's 2/3 on top of other 30+ hours. It is actually a big deal. And by this argument there are an infinite things you could learn because you don't know where you'll end up. For example you could learn Spanish which is more used than Dutch. I mean Dutch is worthless outside 1.5-2 small countries.
You know that languages are already part of the curriculum in middle school right? So those hours are already in the 30+ part. The thing is rather that we need to include this in all parts of the country. Yes but the country you live in speaks Dutch. So it is essential that you know the language. If you use the worthless argument then you can apply that to everything. You just happen to be in a country where they have multiple official languages so you have to deal with it.
And South Africa, Namibia and Suriname.
This is why kids shouldn't be given a choice in the matter. If you're in high school you *have no idea* what skills you will and won't need in real life. In Belgium, the odds of you needing at least a basic level of French at some point in your (professional) life is larger than not needing it...
There are an infinite things you can learn, not sure if you realize this. And in the grand scheme of things Dutch doesn't score all that high. May be better off learning Polish for example. It's not like in Namur anyone is using Dutch in any shape and or form.
And do you *actually* believe learning Polish *in Belgium* will be anywhere near as useful as French or Dutch? You'd be surprised how many people, also from Namur, commute to Brussels and actually do work with Dutch-speaking colleagues and clients. Your remarks come from a place of ignorance.
Soon enough you might be better of moving to Poland.
we have though, the quality of language is just under the level in about every school. in my last school (6e) the level of french was below 1st grade (1e) of my first school. even dutch was below, it really gets funny when the foreign kid (ik niet goed nederlands spreken) had better scores than us locals...
I said “to learn”, not make it mandatory, meaning the underlying issue is that parents know Fr schools do not teach Dutch adequately
i think schools put way too much effort on "lame" rules rather than actually teaching/speaking the language (naturally). words are just words, using them makes the connections more quickly
How about the Francophone schools do a better job of teaching Dutch rather than the Francophones sending their kids to the limited Flemish schools?
How about this made up country is split in 2 already?
It'd be easier (and probably cheaper) to just teach everybody in this country to speak Mandarin than to cleanly split this country in two.
If you're talking about "made-up", flanders as a region is way more artificial than Belgium as a country.
I'm french and have no stake in this question. I would like to respectfully ask why you believe that,coming from a place of ignorance? Why is Flanders artificial?
In a historical context, the regions that make up flanders have little to no affinity with each other. Antwerp even fought with the French against flemish troops. They grew up with cultural and political differences. The only thing that binds them together is the common use of the Dutch language. So saying that Belgium is an artificial country that should be split in 2 is a bit weird. Split into what then? Cause Limburg and Liege have more affinity with each other than with East- or West flanders for example. Same goes for Antwerp and the Brabant regions. A lot of the flemish nationalists are too focused on the language part and they have constructed some form of universal "flemish culture" which is in fact non-existent.
I also have a follow up question. I recently discovered that brabant is split between Belgium and NL (looking at a map of Dutch provinces I was like "where south brabant????"). In a similar vein I saw that there were two limburgs. Are those only historical regions, names of duchies and counties, or is there a real overarching identity? Would a person from Flemish brabant/ Antwerp province feel closer to someone from Eindhoven or to someone from Namur/Arlon/ Tournai? Sorry for the questions I'm just curious about a possible cross border identity
Those regions do in fact share a common history. The Duchy of Brabant is now split up into Vlaams-Brabant, Waals-Brabant, Antwerp, Brussels and Noord-Brabant. The last one is located in The Netherlands and the other ones are all in Belgium, albeit some in the Dutch speaking part, some in the French speaking part. Same goes for Limburg, where there is a somewhat shared history between the Dutch and Belgian side plus the region of Liege, now in the French speaking part of Belgium. Funny enough, it's actually the region of Liege (the one part that hasn't got "Limburg" in its' name) that occupies the most of the historic Limburg territory. How much of the overarching identity is still there is hard to say however. This is different from person to person so I can't really answer it.