Language settings

Hoddie

Would it be possible to allow users to set which languages they speak in their profile, with a default to English perhaps? When someone wants to send a message to another user it would then be helpful if a short message can be displayed saying something like "'Hoddie' can correspond in English, French and Spanish only."

Because I live in Belgium I keep getting messages in Dutch but I don't have a Scooby Do about that language. It makes dealing with the authorities here in Flams Brabant interesting to say the least (civil servants can only speak Dutch on pain of dismissal), but that's another story...

In my experience most Dutch-speaking people also speak English and/or French. It's not a big deal but it would help to save time - and awkwardness on my part - if users were told before sending the message which language(s) would be best to use.

robernat

I know where the vote button is as I just pressed it, but I'm missing the 'like' button here (not that I'm a fan of facebook, quite the contrary). This would indeed be a great option :-)

@Hoddie
Never realised you were not native, but I feel with you, my wife is French (from France just to be clear) and it always leads to quite commical situations when going to official authorities and seeing the look on their faces when she starts speaking Dutch (fluidly and without the slightest accent) after a couple of minutes.
I remember when we came living in this town after buying our house and subscribing at the Town hall, putting her French Passport and resident card on the desk and look at their faces, it was like they had to subscribe the devil in their citizen book. I was doing the dialog and after about 6 or 7 minutes they asked her a question (in Flemish offcourse), expecting her to say in bad Dutch 'I don't understand your question', you can imagine the look on their faces when she responded firmly and in perfect Dutch with even blinking her eyes LOL

I'm always put off at these kind of situations, as 'capital' country of Europe we are expected to 'host' thousands of people from other countries, yet when those new residents present themselves at local institutions they expect them to speak the local language.... What a laugh, I would like to see 'themselves' in a foreign country (if the locals wouldn't do an effort).
Oh and btw, some of them do speak foreign languages (French / English) but in some places they are simply not allowed to address people in another language then the 'official' one, and worse: some seem to simply 'forget' they speak another language soon as they get behind their desk ** sigh **.

Funny part is when we get phonecalls from 'vendors' trying to get us to buy things, it's oftenly in French (vendors from Brussels). Then my wife answers in Dutch and usually the phonecall ends quite quickly then, they usually don't call back either :-D

Hoddie

The people we have to deal with at Zaventem will not speak English or French - and if it's true that they face the sack for doing so then I don't blame them - but so far they've all been perfectly happy to deal with us when we speak English. They just reply in Dutch while pointing at the things they want or that are important for us to use Google Translate on later

I'm in two minds about these rules to be honest. Sure, it makes life miserable for the non-Dutch speakers, but I understand the desire to ensure that non-locals integrate as much as possible. I think it's important to keep the language and culture alive in the face of all those 100,000s of people from across Europe that come to work at the EU/NATO and all the rest. My wife is Spanish but she's lived here since a young kid. She tells me the rules are in place to spite the French-speaking Belgians more than anything else, but I find that hard to believe!

I really should try and learn Dutch. I've got to know quite a few locals and they're all happy to speak English or French with me, but I can't help thinking they'd be happier still if I could speak Dutch

Stragus

I had absolutely no idea such laws existed in Belgium! If I understood correctly, the law stipulates that all services must be offered in Dutch?... Is it the other way around in Wallonia, only French is used?

I'm sorry, but that seems rather messed up.

Here in Quebec, Canada, all businesses and government services must, by law, be able to attend in both French and English. Yet, if appropriate, they can switch to Spanish, Mongolian or anything else if it helps providing better customer service.

Hoddie

RobErNat will know for sure but as I understand it there are several 'governments' here in Belgium that act in parallel with each other, with responsibilities that are often vaguely defined and that occasionally overlap. It's a complicated structure and results both in a lot of inertia and often a lot of nonsense, but for all its faults it does broadly seem to work. There's the national government, a Flemish government, one for the Walloon Region, one for Brussels and then one each for the "French speaking" and "German speaking" communities. The "Dutch speaking" community is represented by the Flemish government but why they don't get a distinct one like the other two I don't know.

I think I'm right in saying that it's only some Dutch/Flemish regions that enforce the "civil servants must speak only Dutch when performing their duties" but for all I know there might be a French equivalent.

In the UK all national public bodies must offer Welsh on request regardless where they or who they're dealing with is based. When I worked in the tax office we had an interpreting service on permanent standby that could deal with over 200 languages. We used to play 'language bingo' and cross off those we'd made use of, I think I'd reached 30 before I left, my favourite being Swahili which is beautifully exotic. Curiously I was never asked for Welsh

robernat

@Stragus
@hoddie
Hoddie is more or less correct, too complicated anyway to explain in details.

And we actually have what we call a language barrier between the Dutch (Flemish) and French (Walloon) part. On the map the barrier is actually drawed to indicate both parts of the country.
Brussels (19 subcity's), the capital is entirely surrounded by the Flemish part, but has 'Frenchised' in the past 100 years, also due to the many international representatives and also due to the comming of many people from outside of Europe (mainly Nothern African countries, where French is also second language), for who it is usually easier to learn French. So the since many decades the Flemish started moving out of Brussels and the most obvious place was the surrounding area with lot's of green space. But then Brussels became capital of the EU, prices went up in the nice parts of Brussels and the next step was the more welthier French people to move out to the surrounding area, but offcourse.... being the Flemish region.
So 'locals' started to fight this, and the more extremist 'Flemish' people got support from more extremist Politicians and slowly the gap growed between the Flemish and Walloon grew bigger, particulary in the 30 km around Brussels.
The Walloon part is less confronted with Flemish people moving in, but as they move further away, they end up in the Walloon part just as well, but the % is smaller and the Walloon people have generally more hospitality.
Personally I was born and raised in one of the Brussels Subcity's, so both languages are 'obvious' for me and for many Belgians it doesn't matter either. But the strongheaded people (supported by politicians) pushed their thoughts trough up to a point where local public servants MUST address in the local language (Flemish), indeed particulary to not having to serve in French, but they are forgetting the whole region is now also the habitat for all the EU/NATO/Embassies representatives who are also moving out of Brussels due to lack of space (and more criminality) and for them it's mainly English and... French. Unfortunatly these local servants (oftenly a bit narrowminded) don't seem to have the ability to distinguish between the Walloon and the many 'International People' who speak another language and who indeed might feel quite 'unwelcome' in the surrounding area of Brussels. And offcourse many of the representatives come over for only 3 to 5 years ( so most don't really bother to learn Dutch) and it causes a constant flow of 'newbies' on top.

This is about the story/problem in a nutshelf (for 5 or 6 decades of stories worthed).

bluedragon

This thread is already slightly derailed so I will add to it ;-)

Belgium is a funny part of the world and I mean that in a good way. I lived in Flanders (near the Dutch border) for about a year and have fond memories. I was working in a multinational, which used English as the official language but we were encouraged to learn Flemish and were provided with free classes and books, so there is an effort to integrate immigrants. I did attend the night classes for a while but met my future wife (also a foreigner) and "dropped out of school" to go out more often! I miss the beer, chocolate, mussels and chips!

I spoke enough to order food/drink, greet, ask/understand directions but I think most people spoke some English. I remember having to go to the city hall to take care of the residency permit (or whatever it was called) but can't remember how we communicated. Can't have been a bad experience or I would remember...