Re: Dutch/Japanese bilinguals?

jim_breen_at_hotmail.com
Date: 11/10/04 

Date: 10 Nov 2004 00:16:44 GMT

Apud robert <rverbeke@hotmail.com> (sci.lang.japan) hoc legimus:

>I can understand the situation is somewhat hard to understand... In
>Belgium people speak Dutch, French and German. When Brittish people
>visit Bruges (in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) they try to speak
>French to the locals because they think they are doing them a favor
>this way.

The idea of Brits trying to speak French as a "favor" borders on the
absurd anyway.

>The capital Brussels is in the Dutch speaking part, but the majority
>of the people speaks French. When you ask directions in English there,
>people will answer you in French.

Just like in France.

>If you ask directions in Dutch in
>many cases they will turn their back on you.

Just like in France. 8-)}

> The majority of people in Belgium
>speak Dutch, but for some reason nobody knows this...

Well, the French know for sure that French isn't spoken in Belgium.

The last time I was in Paris, I noticed a lot of signs for tourists in
Spanish and Italian (as well as English, of course), but very few in
German. I asked a friend why there were so few German signs. She thought
it was because all the visiting Germans would probably be able to speak
English...

>However, some of them have heard the word
>"furamango"! (This is supposed to be my language I guess...)

Well, to commemorate this posting, I've added $B%U%i%^%s8l(B
and $B%U%i%^%s?M(B to JMdict/EDICT. 

-- 
Jim Breen        http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/
Computer Science & Software Engineering,
Monash University, VIC 3800, Australia 
$B%8%`!&%V%j!<%s(B@$B%b%J%7%eBg3X(B

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