17 Beautiful Words to Make You Fall in Love with the Flemish Language

[Dandelion]

Another Flemish word, and one many conservative people here would hate, holebi. That's our word for LGBT. It's shortened for homo, lesbiënne en biseksueel. Dutch people don't use that word which I always found odd that they never adopted it (pre-internet word too).

[Dandelion]

You wouldn't struggle. Think of it as super-simplified Dutch.

There are some purely South African words though. Like "baie" which means "a lot". Karos, which is an animal-hide blanket. Dagga which is marijuana.

I also think it would be easy. I might first mix it with Dutch though and sound awkward.

One feature of Afrikaans in its even more analytical nature than Dutch (Afrikaans is even more analytical than English ) I found interesting are the words 'hierdie' and 'daardie'. French also has that in 'voici' and 'voilà'. I wonder whether that's due to French influences (as many Afrikaners are of French descent).

[Ouistreham]

I found interesting are the words 'hierdie' and 'daardie'. French also has that in 'voici' and 'voilà'. I wonder whether that's due to French influences (as many Afrikaners are of French descent).

Not necessarily French influence. Was probably some kind of virtuality encapsulated in all Germanic languages. Swedish has also det här and det där.

Another Flemish word, and one many conservative people here would hate, holebi. That's our word for LGBT. It's shortened for homo, lesbiënne en biseksueel. Dutch people don't use that word which I always found odd that they never adopted it (pre-internet word too).

That's a great one. In French we use the acronym LGBT, which matches the English naming (Lesbiennes, Gays, Bisexuels, Transsexuels).

Some of the words listed seem to be litteral translations from the French:
· welgekomen: self-explanatory.
. vieruurtje: like "quatre-heures", the snack children are given when they leave school.
· dovemansgesprek: "dialogue de sourds"
. marcelleke: in French it's called "marcel", a word with a long story. In the 60-70's "Marcel" became a stereotypical low class name (like "Kevin" nowadays), associated with the shirts lorry drivers were wearing at the time there was no air conditioning in their vehicles. At some point those shirts became fashionable again, but the affectionately scornful naming "marcel" has remainced. I didn't know the word had made its way in Belgian Dutch.