Do you like French language?

[Gold-Shekel]

Flemish speak English with Walloons mostly nowadays. When they speak French it's because they put effort into it. They want to show they're open for other cultures and the language of their direct neighbour, not because French is as relevant as it were in the past. English is the only true international language today. Scientific papers in France are published in English, not in French.

But anyway. Even an American living here would never boast about the superiority of English like you're doing. It's a cultural thing too I think. Even Napoleon had to keep up appearance of grandeur (he lost his artillery in Jaffa, but went home to France with an air of glory leaving Kléber behind with little resources until he got murdered by an Arab student; anyone who dared show criticism would get relentlessly punished), so did DeGaule.
American culture can be jingoistic, but they don't really have that air of bombast around them. De Gaule even couldn't accept importing vaccines developed in the US to rid the world of smallpox. It had to be developed in a French lab before he'd accept such vaccination programme. Such nationalism is very backward. But DeGaule was the last French leader with a pre-war mentality of old school nationalism. He's still very respected in France, but it's still what it is.

French was fabricated into this superior language, there is nothing naturally great about, hence why French is that strong of a language. English is so popular because it is easy, but remember that people around the world used to make the effort to learn a needlessly difficult language so they could appear as higher than they are.
Speaking English today is "normal" and the fact it is spoken by everyone has degraded it, however French is still intact for the most and it is still widely considered as "something special" to know French.

As for de Gaulle, he was right, accepting American imperialism is what is destroying Europe as Europe doesn't carry its balls for its own interest but that's another subject. Americans also have that mentality that they assume you speak English.

[Dandelion]

When I go to Germany I say "Bonjour" "Merci" etc... too, but as a reflex, or as a way to say "sorry my German sucks a bit". I love the German language though, I wish I was better at it. And my brain is always confused when they say "Hallo", I always think they are on the phone.
I don't expect anyone to speak French abroad, but I'm often surprised that some people do.

Depending on region Germanophones say at least 'merci' themselves. We also say 'merci' and 'ça va' in our informal Dutch.
I have heard 'bof!' as well, but it's more a thing of having learned French as a group. It doesn't come that naturally as the previous too which are more generally used across the entire Flemish Region. Just a few individuals who do and they're just temporarily speaking French then even if it's for a small interjection. Doubt that truly counts. 'Nah und?' is also used by some Dutch speakers that way, but always in assuming the other speakers has experience in learning German.

[Dandelion]

French was fabricated into this superior language, there is nothing naturally great about, hence why French is that strong of a language. English is so popular because it is easy, but remember that people around the world used to make the effort to learn a needlessly difficult language so they could appear as higher than they are.
Speaking English today is "normal" and the fact it is spoken by everyone has degraded it, however French is still intact for the most and it is still widely considered as "something special" to know French.

As for de Gaulle, he was right, accepting American imperialism is what is destroying Europe as Europe doesn't carry its balls for its own interest but that's another subject. Americans also have that mentality that they assume you speak English.

I just think you're trolling. I dunno man. Personally I don't feel like trolling in every thread out there. But you're right that there used to be a prestige level attached to knowing French in Belgium due to a Frenchified elite, but I don't quite follow what makes French more perfect than say German, which also is a very solid and complete standard language in my opinion, generally devoid of a dialectical nature.

But as they say, converts tend to be more fanatic. You're not an ethnic Walloon, but a Bosniak immigrant and one who even doesn't like the West and prefers Islam over it and likes to show it. That's your reputation here. Dividing Western Europeans is in your interest.

[Ouistreham]

Yes it has and far more random too.

Example:
PHO-tograph
Pho-TO-grapher
Photo-GRAPH-ic

The stress is on a different syllable in each word.

This is mobile stressing, not free stress (I think only French offers really free stress, i.e. the possibility of stressing any word the way you want, including pronouncing all syllables unstressed).

That would drive me nuts trying to learn.

Italian also features mobile stress.
In the words fotografo, fotografia, fotografico, fotografare, etc. the stress falls each time on a different vowel. It's a nightmare. Add to this the various conjugated forms of the verb fotografare. It takes a life to learn them all.
Spanish has similar rules, but fortunately uses accent marks to show which vowel receives the stress (it's hard to remember where they are when it comes to speak in live situations though).

[Smitty]

This is mobile stressing, not free stress (I think only French offers really free stress, i.e. the possibility of stressing any word the way you want, including pronouncing all syllables unstressed).



Italian also features mobile stress.
In the words fotografo, fotografia, fotografico, fotografare, etc. the stress falls each time on a different vowel. It's a nightmare. Add to this the various conjugated forms of the verb fotografare. It takes a life to learn them all.
Spanish has similar rules, but fortunately uses accent marks to show which vowel receives the stress (it's hard to remember where they are when it comes to speak in live situations though).

Spanish is pretty easy, I think. At least, it has rules for where the stress goes. I don't know them, but the pronunciation has always come fairly naturally to me, which leads me to think it's fairly regular. Maybe English is the same, but I would guess there's less method to our madness.

[♥ Lily ♥]

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