Vi piace l’accento fiammingo così come a molti americani piace l’accento britannico?
What do Dutch people think of Belgian Dutch (Flemish) accents?
byu/Jezzaq94 inthenetherlands
di Jezzaq94
Vi piace l’accento fiammingo così come a molti americani piace l’accento britannico?
What do Dutch people think of Belgian Dutch (Flemish) accents?
byu/Jezzaq94 inthenetherlands
di Jezzaq94
48 Comments
Very pleasant accents. Some harder to understand (west flemish) than others
A woman with a soft flemish ‘G’ is just the stuff of dreams
Ik vind het een zalig taaltje.
I hate the way Belgian people speak Dutch, it’s hard to understand and it feels like they’re just taking our language for a run around the mill.
I think it’s adorable
Klinkt plezierig. Wat zong Henk Westbroek ook alweer?
I used to think of it as a very pleasant, slightly formal sounding accent. Then I went to Brugge and had to work with some locals there and I changed my opinion.
A woman with a Flemish accent definitely do something for me.
I think Flemish sounds childish so I often have to laugh when I hear someone speak Flemish.
Een gematigd Vlaams accent (uit regio Antwerpen) klinkt prettig aan de oren en is beter dan sommige accenten van boven de rivieren. West-Vlaams en Limburgs zijn voor het ongetrainde oor vaak compleet onverstaanbaar, dus daar kan ik niet veel over zeggen.
Love it in women.
A bit ridiculous in men.
Goedele Liekens has trained generations of Dutchies to associate her accent with sexytalk.
Also this classic: [Waar heeft u voor het laatst sex gehad ? (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyHABtwnJXE)
There is a certain brand of Flemish where a lot of emphasis is used, for example the way David van Reybrouck and Paul Verhaeghe speak, that sometimes obfuscates that what the person is saying is not as deep as it sounds. Idk it has some quasi-intellectual vibe to it.
Whenever a doctor has bad news for me, I hope (s)he is Belgian. Cause it will sound more ‘soft’ and less scary.
I grew up in the states with a flemish mother, and learned/spoke flemish as a kid. When I first started visiting NL as an adult people would immediately reply in English when I spoke. So I adopted a Dutch accent. Living here now I always speak with a Dutch accent to start conversations, but will slowly slide into Flemish as the conversation goes on.
One-on-one most Dutch people will say they love the flemish accent and think the flemish do lovely things with the language. In a group setting or out in public though they dont seem to have the patience for it.
Ik heb er echt een zwak voor en vind het altijd zo rustgevend klinken.
Charming .
I’m Dutch and lived in Belgium for a couple of years. The Flemish accent is certainly charming and I have been part of the VRT (Flemish national TV/radio station) which used the “cleanest” Flemish, I kind of picked up that accent, but lost it a few years ago. It’s not an attraction for me, but I do enjoy hearing it, it’s nowhere near how Americans are into British accents.
It sounds very old and formal, especially old Dutch words like ‘verdraagzaam’, and then throwing in some neat French words makes them sound more sophisticated.
But it’s also weirdly cute? Like Afrikaanse words. But also because they speak with such a soft voice that it doesn’t really fit the expectations of how e.g. a middle aged man would sound. Let alone a tough biker or someone who’s angry.. 🥲
That all goes through the window when they have an extremely thick Antwerps or West-Flemish? accent. Then I just give up trying to understand lol.
Either very pleasant to listen to (most Flemish accents), or atrocious and incomprehensible (west of Antwerp).
Dutchie living in Belgium here. Not a fan of the accent most of the time, especially when it quite often is hard to fully comprehend when spoken to. I do love some of the Flemish words, though, like “poembak” (wasbak), or the use of “poepen”. And I have a soft spot for guys saying “seg” with that soft g.
I think it’s cool, all the variation and different words and such.
Belgian dutch also has some cool composite new words or “old-fashioned” words where in the Netherlands we use a english loanword (pompelmoes vs grapefruit or zwerfauto vs camper), or in Belgium they use a french loanword and in NL a different word (confituur vs jam). Often they also use words which sound dutch to dutch people, but we’d have no idea what they would mean (vijs vs schroef), or which can cause unfortunate misunderstandings (poepen).
It’s also interesting from a linguistic point of view. In NL the “standard language/prestige language” already started appearing during the Republic (16th century) with the dominance of the province of Holland/Amsterdam and started spreading early, so it has been relatively standarized. However in Belgium they had a longer occupation by Spain/France/Austria, so no region had much power over other regions. Additionally French was the prestige language for a long time. So “standard” Dutch in Belgium is a more recent mixture of different Belgian Dutch dialect and there is less of a consensus which rules/words are the standard because there are many different dialects to chose from and less of a dominance of one region over another.
Practically, even if Belgian people try to speak more “standard” Dutch instead of dialect, it can still be difficult to understand at times due to the different words and expressions. Dialect can be completely impossible to understand.
Lovely accent. But if some flemish people could tell me where and how many times we Dutch need to interject the word alstublieft or bitte when ordering something, please let me know.
Pleasant soft sounding accent, nice but very indirect people to work with.
I really like it. Sometimes trying to sound more Belgium but cant make it right
Depends on the region and the setting , f.i. the news is very pleasant and understandable and I will sometimes switch to the belgian channel during cycling or the Olympics because the commentary is nicer but I’ve also had situations where I had to really concentrate to understand someone.
Like British I suppose.
Having watched a ton of Ketnet in my younger days, I quite like it.
I find it very soothing and very relaxing to listen to
I have my car navigation set to Flemish, because getting directions sounds so much more friendly than in Netherlands Dutch.
I really like it. It pronounces loanwords flemish. Like flat and tram. In Dutch we say flet and trem. In flemish they pronounce them with the a from appel. I also love words like botten for boots, schuifaf for slide and buitenwipper for bouncer. When they say I love you, they say ik zie u graag. The use of gij, ge and u is very charming in my opinion.
I like how they use words.
Pretty much what everyone else said, but I also have a really hard time taking it serious and sometimes have to laugh.
Depends. Most Flemish accents are fine. I have a former colleague from Turnhout, though, and he’s genuinely hard to follow, especially in a bar after a couple of Duvels.
Sound childish and dumb. Not all the accents tho, Antwerp and Gent accents are a lot nicer and they use kinder words. West Flamish are impossible to understand. Rest of Flamish just sounds dumb and most of the time they use less kind words
Annoying, but I do like Flemish people they’re cool
Flamish women with that soft pronounciation melts ny heart.
[Accent is fine. Dialects though…](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ0g6BH0iQY)
Personally I like the Flemish accents. However I have worked with Dutch colleagues that really fit the definition of narrow minded.
I had Studio Brussel on at work and whenever a DJ or advertisement would talk there would be comments of “thats not a language” and “how can you even understand that?”or “it’s so weird”.
Those comments infuriate me.
The Dutch are tolerant, but not necessarily accepting.
I can’t understand it at all
Ik woon al 13 jaar in Belgisch Limburg en vind het nog steeds leuk klinken 🙂 gebruik nu zelfs de zachte g.
Toch de leukste dialect zijn Genkenaars met Italiaanse roots! Echt geweldig haha
In my experience it is generally looked down upon, I can’t say I care much for it either.
To me it sounds pleasant, quite rhythmic. I like that they sometimes use different words for things, those differences are interesting to me. The only thing is, it sounds so cute I would have trouble taking them seriously if they got angry.
I often watch sports on Belgian channels when the Dutch commentary is bad. I like it. Maybe it’s because I grew up relatively close to the Belgian border (Zeeland), but I never found their way of speaking weird or hard to understand, even if it’s quite different from my own.
‘Two nations seperated by the same language’ , while it’s often not quite the same language. I just love it, it gives a sense of fully understanding a completely different language. The difference between Dutch and Flemish also reveals a strong difference in culture and identity between the two nations. As I said before, I simply like it a lot, no, just love it. Huge respect for the Flemmings, hope it’s vice versa
As a person from Brabant it feels familiar how soft they speak in Flanders. Sometimes they feel closer to us compared to those from north of the rivers who use the stange word for Friet called Patat.
A woman with a flemish accent is incredibly sexy
For men it’s rather silly lol
There is nothing better than listening to the versiercursus of Geert.
No we think it sounds ridiculous and we make fun of it all the time.
I’m a Belgian (from Antwerp) who’s lived in the Netherlands for 11 years and never lost her accent. I still talk the same way I did before I came, I just use some different words now.
And going by how often people just wanna talk to me because they like how I sound and tell me how they love my accent, I’d say they’re into it.