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Belgian French, and the trap of the charming regionalism
Belgium has roughly four and a half million French speakers, and their French differs from France's in about the way Québec's does in kind, though much less in degree. The phonology is close to northern French, the grammar is the same grammar, and the differences are vocabulary, the numbers, and a layer of borrowings from Dutch that French French does not have. What is worth understanding is the asymmetry of attitude, because it shapes how your own usage lands. Belgian French has long been the subject of French condescension — the 'blague belge', the Belgian joke, is a whole genre in France, and 'une fois' is its linguistic badge. Belgians are entirely aware of this, find it tiresome rather than wounding, and have a healthy counter-tradition of mocking Parisian pretension. The practical consequence for a learner is specific: using Belgicismes because you live there and they are the local words is unremarkable and welcome. Deploying them as local colour, or with the slightly performed delight of somebody who has discovered something quaint, is the thing to avoid. 'Septante' said naturally because you are in Liège is fine. 'Septante' said with a knowing smile is doing something else. The same point applies in reverse and is more useful. If you learnt 'soixante-dix' from this course and say it in Brussels, nobody minds at all — French numbers are universally understood and a great many Belgians use them when speaking to French people. Nothing in this lesson is a correction of what you already know. It is a decoding key, plus a small set of words that will make life easier if you are there. Three things that will actually happen to you in Belgium. Somebody will say 'je ne sais pas' when they mean they can't, and you will briefly think they are being strange. Somebody will invite you 'à dîner' and you will arrive seven hours late unless you ask the time. And it will rain — 'il drache' — far more than you planned for, which is why 'un essuie' is a word worth having. The numbers, which look like the headline, are the easiest part: septante and nonante are transparent the first time you hear them.