Belgium languages
I'm not going to respond since he doesn't wish to carry this debate on and it wouldn't be courteous to do. You can have the last word my friend.
Greg: I'm not reading your posts as I said earlier. You obviously can't write in the world's most significant and widespread language so I pity you.
European Politics:
1.)I'm well aware of the former presence of the waloon language, but I don't see how it's relevant. You are wrong however. While waloon use to be spoken a lot more, french was the language of educated in waloonia since napolean.
2.) A significant and rapidly growing percentage of the flemish sympathize with xtreme right. Take a look at the recent polls...There wouldn't be talk of independence if there wasn't a sizable percentage of the population who supported it.
3.) You are obviously not familiar with the Belgian economy. The flemish economy has been stronger for decades and the discrepancy with walloonia is only growing larger. The reason the flemish want independence is because the flemish are fed up with subsidizing the poor and mostly rural walloons.
4.) Yes, I have been to both parts of Belgium. I found the flemish to reserved and humble in general. My impressions in walloonia was they tend to be louder when they spoke. They were also very rude to anglophone tourists(not myself but other people I was with).
This is what the british want to think, but most dutch find the british one of two things: arrogant snobs or out of control drunkards. They much prefer the americans (who they also find loud and uncultured, but the dutch share these traits to an extent so are not offended).
"If the culture and language is so close, why don't british people speak dutch? Oh, I forgot, they don't speak any foreign language. (==Example of stereotyping in your style but reversed). This reveals your biase for flanders and your badly-informed subjective opinion."
Now you speak for every dutchman? Please, educated yourself child. In my visits to the Netherlands the dutch were very receptive of me and my english friends.
Why don't all french people speak english? Some english do speak dutch like myself. However, it reflects upon your lack of intelligence to assume one must learn the language of a culture just because your fond of it.
JLK,
<<In my visits to the Netherlands the dutch were very receptive of me and my english friends.>>
The dutch are very receptive of tourists who bring their money to The Netherlands, but not of foreigners who live in their country. The dutch love money.
<<I found the flemish to reserved and humble in general. My impressions in walloonia was they tend to be louder when they spoke.>>
Walloons speak very softly. Have you ever travelled on a train in Wallonie? They all whisper. It is true that the dutch and british are much louder than the belgians *in general* but other nations can compete such as Spain and Italy. Loudness doesn't necessarily equate with rudeness, however.
I don't believe that you are a native speaker of English. I am not either, but how can you explain mistakes you made as:
1. <<Please, educated yourself child>> (tense! educate)
2. <<because your fond of it>> (using the possessive pronoun is wrong! you're / you are)
<<You are obviously not familiar with the Belgian economy.>>
I am very familiar with it and its politics too.
<<The flemish economy has been stronger for decades and the discrepancy with walloonia is only growing larger. The reason the flemish want independence is because the flemish are fed up with subsidizing the poor and mostly rural walloons.>>
True. Do you find this an acceptable motivation? I don't.
<<The GDP per capita in Flanders is considerbaly higher than Wallonia. This is why the Flemish want indepence. The french speakers are holding them back lol.>>
Yes, the GDP is substantially higher in Flanders, and Wallonie is "backward" in this area, but both Flanders and Wallonie enjoy a GDP much higher than most of the world.
The flemish motivation for separation is economic, you admit. Using this logic/justification all wealthy regions across the world should split from their countries to prevent to be held back by the poor regions. Then the rich can finally get richer and the poor get poorer! Let's just allow all poor people of the world to starve or die of curable disease - we don't have to share our wealth! Those poorer people hold us back.
I feel sorry for you, JLK, that you live your life with such a selfish outlook because sharing is more fulfilling than grabbing all for yourself.
<<Now you speak for every dutchman? >>
No, I said *most* dutch.
<<My voice on the belgian issue is quite neutral as an american. >>
It is far from neutral. My position is truly neutral, and add to that mine is well-informed.
European Politics: Continue on with your rhetoric. No one is listening. I'm sorry the issue means so much to you, you must have a very boring life. Might I suggest that you research the subject in more detail as I have no patience for such ramblings. You have proved yourself to be an intellectually inferior opponent and I have no desire to waste my time educating you in Belgian politics.
I'm afraid that Belgium will end up spliting off because everybody is interested in it:
The Flemish want to be richer and don't desire to be attached to the relatively poorer Walloons.
The Dutch hope that the Flemish join the Netherlands.
Germany as always is pleased with the ethnic revival of the Flemish extreme right.
The French want Wallonia for themselves since the resulting country would be too tiny and poor to be independent, so they would join France. They share same language .
Many nationalist movements in North America and Europe (the Quebequers, Lega Nord in itay, the basques and so on) would be delighted .
This is not a linguistic thread anymore it has become a political one, full of hatred and arrogance. In my view threads like this should be locked and not the one concerning our favourite languages, which is probably a silly and not too scientific but at least it's funny and "innocent"
"The dutch are very receptive of tourists who bring their money to The Netherlands, but not of foreigners who live in their country. The dutch love money".
"Walloons speak very softly. Have you ever travelled on a train in Wallonie? They all whisper. It is true that the dutch and british are much louder than the belgians *in general* but other nations can compete such as Spain and Italy. Loudness doesn't necessarily equate with rudeness, however".
Woowo
What deep thoughts! Some more clichés please.........:-)
JLK : « I'm not reading your posts as I said earlier. You obviously can't write in the world's most significant and widespread language so I pity you. »
Mais moi je lis tes messages car ils sont rigolos. Même si, à l'évidence, tu ne connais pas la syntaxe universelle de la conversation courtoise et argumentée. Je te plains car tu donnes l'impression de te dégonfler.
JLK : « I found the flemish to reserved and humble in general. My impressions in walloonia was they tend to be louder when they spoke. They were also very rude to anglophone tourists(not myself but other people I was with). »
Tu nous livres là une info exclusive — que dis-je ? — une actu de portée intersidérale ! Un modèle de perspicacité et d'impartialité...
JLK : « Now you speak for every *dutchman*? Please, *educated* yourself child. »
Et toi, tu parles pour tous les États-uniens/Britanniques alors que tu fais une faute à chaque ligne ? La morphologie anglaise n'est pourtant pas si complexe ! Et je ne compte pas les fautes de goût...
JLK : « Why don't all *french* people speak *english*? »
J'allais te poser la même question : t'es fâché avec le maniement de la majuscule exigé par ta langue maternelle ? Commence par apprendre ta propre langue — si tu n'es pas trop rancunier...
JLK : « European Politics: Continue on with your rhetoric. No one is listening. »
Venant de la part de quelqu'un qui professe l'autisme avec grandiloquence, voilà qui ne manque pas de sel.
JLK : tu auras au moins gagné quelque chose au cours de cette "conversation" → parvenir à faire fermer ce salon de discussion. Félicitations.
I'm glad you laugh a lot greg. You shouldn't take yourself too seriously as no one else does...
Listen to me my mentally challenged francophone friend, I have no patience for such childless. If you want to talk to me, then write in english. If I were in France or Quebec I would write these posts in french, but I'm not. I can only assume that your knowledge of english is poor and you are embarrassed. It's ok though, I only judge the content of one's writing not the grammatical errors. I've read your posts and I can tell you struggle in written expression even in your native language. If you would like, I could provide you some assistance in this area.
Best Regards,
JLK
I've noticed that your English is not native too, JLK. YOu make strange mistakes for a native speaker. For example, English begins with a capital letter.
JLK geh zum Teufel! Vete a la porra!
Neste forum usam-se todas as linguas, se voce sabe falar somente ingles nao é um problema nosso. Acho bom o Greg escrever em frances para que nòs possamos ler esta bonita lingua.
If I cared about my spelling and grammatical blunders on this forum that would imply that I valued your opinion which I don't. I think it's kind of pathetic that you have the time to go over everyones posts and check for mistakes, but to each his own.
Stupid way to to justify your mistakes, you are a Flemish disguised as something else.
A Pleghmish disguised as Flemish.
Sorry, I'm not Flemish guest.
By the way, your post is a sentence fragment. You need to hit the books harder mon ami. However, you should be proud of the English skills you currently have. Many French only know how to utter two phrases. Namely, "I hate the English" and "I surrender", the latter being in German of course.
Les pauvres francais...mon cher dieu.
We must also remember the famous quote by Charles de Gaulle(a Frenchman himself lol)“I have tried to lift France out of the mud. But she will return to her errors and vomitings. I cannot prevent the French from being French.”
Charles de Gaulle was lacking in many areas, but his vision for the future was right on.