Transcript of the video

Hi everyone, I hope you are well and ready for a new video in French. So today, I'm going to propose you a little bit special theme. You will see. It's going to be a pretty funny video. You may not know it, but in reality, I'm not French. I come from another French speaking country. I come from Belgium, so I am Belgian. Belgium is a very small country, just above France.

It is a rather important country in Europe because Brussels, the capital of Belgium, is also the capital of Europe. Most of the European institutions are located in Brussels. It is a rather important city. In this video, I would like to talk about the French language in Belgium. Obviously, most of the language is common with the French language spoken in France. But there are linguistic particularities, expressions, words that are only used in Belgium or even words that are different to designate things.

Words that we use in France, so objects that we will name differently. You'll even see, even a vegetable that we don't call the same way. If you're a beginner, I'm afraid that it will confuse you in your learning of the language. So, it's more if you want to enrich your culture on the French language or if you have planned a vacation soon in Brussels or in Belgium or if you are learning French because you live in Belgium or if you have planned to move there or if you are just curious.

We will see together these linguistic particularities.

Before starting, remember to activate the French subtitles if you need them. It will help you to understand the video better and especially to understand these particular words of Belgian French. I came with my dictionary of belgicisms. I'll show you. So a belgicisme is the word we use to describe words that come from Belgian French. So, a belgicism is a word in Belgian French.

You see, it's huge. There are many words, in fact, that are particular to Belgium. I have selected some. I reassure you, we don't have to see everything, otherwise the video will last 10 hours, but we will have some of them. The most important or the most funny ones. If you live in the north of France or if you are planning to go there, you will also see, there are many of these words that are used there, in the region of Lille.

It is true that we share a very strong culture between Belgium and the north of France. And in the manners... in certain festivals or in the way of living, but also in the language. I suppose that in your country too, it must be like that according to the regions. Even if you share the same language, there must be words that are used in one region and not in another. So, this is also the case in France, for example, in Marseille, there are words that are used that are not used elsewhere in France, which are linguistic particularities of certain regions.

Let's start right away with the first words. It's quite particular because we also use them in France, but not for the same moments of the day. These are the words we use to qualify, to talk about meal times. In France, we say breakfast for the morning, lunch for the afternoon and dinner for the evening. And if we eat between meals, we say that we have a snack.

In Belgium, we say breakfast for the morning. So, what we use in France for lunch. Dinner, whereas in France, dinner is for the evening. And supper for the evening. So in France, it's breakfast, lunch, dinner. And in Belgium, it's lunch, dinner, supper. It's true that when I arrived in France, it could lead to confusion. I often made mistakes. I didn't say the right word, so it was complicated to be able to plan things with people because I told them dinner and for me dinner was at noon. And they thought we were going to meet in the evening.

I've been in France for six years now and I'm going to tell you some anecdotes about the words we're going to use and what happened when people didn't understand. A second particularity concerns a meal time. I told you that in France, we would say a snack. In Belgium, when you go to eat at the morning break between breakfast and lunch, but for Belgium, between lunch and dinner. For example, a snack can be a Kit Kat, for example, we'll call it a ten o'clock, so ten o'clock like the time.

This is because in general, when we are in school, the break between the beginning of school and when we go to eat at noon, it is at 10 o'clock. So we say: I eat my ten o'clock. Another peculiarity is on the numbers. When we count in France, we say seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four... and we also say ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two... In Belgium, we say septante and nonante.

All the other numbers are the same, from 1 to 100, everything is the same, except for the part seventy and the part ninety. So we will say seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine. After eighty, it's the same. And when we go to ninety, we will say ninety, ninety-one, ninety-two, ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five, ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine.

For me, it's hard to do that, especially when I have to count. For me, it was also difficult when I picked up the phone at work and had to write down a number. For example, if someone told me that their number was seventy-four, I didn't know if it was 60 and 14 or if it was just 74. Septante-quatre in Belgian French. That's still a little difficult for me, even though I've been living in France for years.

Another peculiarity of Belgian French is when you leave someone, but you will see them again during the day. In French, we say "à tout à l'heure". In Belgian French, we say "à tantôt". In reality, à tantôt is really... sorry... à tantôt is really very, very old French. So, if you say "à tantôt" in France, nobody says that. Or very, very old people. In Belgium, we almost never say "à tout à l'heure", we really say "à tantôt" to say we'll see you later.

So, other words where it's a little bit complicated... that are different... this is... I'll show you. This, in French, is a bath towel. And this is a tea towel. It's for the kitchen. We, in Belgium, this and this, we'll call them towels, this "un essuie de bain", this "un essuie de vaisselle". But, depending on the context, you can just say "wipe" and everybody understands. On the other hand, in France, when you say "essuie", nobody understands what you are saying.

And... it's true that when you're used to using a word, it's hard to change your habit. And from one day to the next, saying "towel" instead of saying wipe.

Another word that is different. In France, we say a cell phone or a laptop. In Belgium, it's called a GSM. G...S...M.

Another word that is different. And this is said in the north of France, I'll show you because I don't have one at home.

It is the endives, it is a vegetable that can be eaten either in salad or cooked. I put you a small photo so you can see. Often we make endive gratins with ham. In Belgium, we say a chicon. So this is the word for a vegetable that is different. But in the north of France, we also say chicon.

An expression that is used a lot in Belgium and that is not very well understood in France.

In fact, it happened to me with a colleague. It's the expression "je te dis quoi". In French, it could correspond to... je t'informe plus tard. Je t'en dit plus un peu plus tard. In Belgium, we say "je te dis quoi". So it happened to me with a colleague, we had to... We were taking the same metro, we were saying that we were going to leave work together to take our metro and we didn't know very well at what time he and I would finish.

I tell him, "I'll tell you what later today". And in fact, he didn't understand what I said and in fact, he left without me. So, this is an expression that is really used a lot in Belgium, but not at all in France. If you say to someone "je te dis quoi", he won't understand you.

Another difference sometimes is just in little words, for example. In France, we'll say "knock on the door" when you want to... you do it like that to signal yourself.

In Belgium, we say "knock on the door". Another word that we use differently is this... In France, we say adhesive or a roll of tape. In Belgium, it's called sticky paper. In itself, it makes a lot more sense because it's a piece of paper that's sticky.

Another expression that is different. In Belgium, when we wait one behind the other, for example at the bakery, we say that we are in line, so we are one behind the other.

We wait. In France, we'd rather say we're waiting in line. It happened... I was on vacation with my parents a few years ago. And we met some French people and the discussion lasted a long time. There was a French woman who asked my father "Is this the queue?" And my dad said, "Yes, that's the line," and the French woman said, "Ah, but is that the line?" And my father was like, "Yes, it's the line." And it went on for a long time like that.

Another word that is different, when in France... When you have a drink in one go. Like this. We say that we drink it down. In Belgium, we say that we affone. I sharpened this glass of water.

As another difference, what else is there, for example, hair when it's like that. In Belgium, we say it's curly hair. In France, we say curly hair. So crolles and curls.

Otherwise, there are plenty of other words.

For example, we will say "fair". And in France, we say "fête foraine". It's the place where you can go... where you eat candy apples, cotton candy. You see there are really a lot of them. I'm going to give you three more because otherwise it never ends. There are so many.

One that is often used in Belgium, because it rains a lot. It's when it's really raining... it's pouring. That's what we say in France.

It is raining really hard. In Belgium, we say that it is raining. It's draught.

Another word, it is for example this ring, it is a ring in toc. We'll say in France. It's fake. It is not a precious metal. So, in France, we say it's fake. In Belgium, they say it's junk. So we'll say if it's peanuts, it's a peanut ring.

It means that it is not valuable, that it is not of good quality.

And finally, opn will end on a last word. Where same, every time I go to a store to buy some, we don't understand. I'll show you.

In Belgium, you see this what girls wear in winter with dresses. We call it stocking stuffers. So with a dash stocking feet. So, that's it.

In France, it's either stockings or tights. So this, what I showed you, this is pantyhose. Stockings are a little more... They're like socks. You see, there's an end. It's true that often, me, when I go to a store, and I say "I would like some tights". They look at me and say, "do you want socks or tights?" So there you go, it's still a confusing word.

Where they don't understand me in France.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed this video. Don't hesitate if you've already been to Belgium or if you live in Belgium and there are words that you've noticed that are not the same in Belgian French and in French from France, don't hesitate to put them in comments. Please let me know if you liked this video, if you liked it, don't forget to put a like, it helps me a lot.

If you are new too, please subscribe so you can receive all the videos and it helps me a lot to continue my channel.

See you soon and have a wonderful day.