How Brussels, Belgium Operates as a Trilingual City

You might know Brussels as the capital of Belgium, or the home of many European institutions… but did you know it has two official languages that the region needs to operate in? Or that more residents actually speak a third unofficial language than one of the official ones?
It’s almost as confusing as it sounds, but in this video Emily takes you through Brussels’ past and present so you can understand how to get by in this multilingual city today.

Leave a comment with any questions you have and we’ll make sure to include it in a future video.

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Bright Trip creates video-based travel courses to help you travel smarter. From our location courses that visually demystify places like Tokyo, London, Costa Rica, or Cape Town to our skills courses that cover how to travel solo, with kids, or how to document your travels more effectively and efficiently - each course is created by real travelers, like you, and aims to create a community of curious travelers that are eager to travel smarter.

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[caitlinbrown]

In Brussels when you walk into a museum the staff will greet you with "Bonjour, hallo, hello" and you can respond in whichever language you choose

[geralddemeulemeester]

A little correction, the higher classes everywhere in Belgium spoke French, the middle classes in big cities learned a bit of French because it was "chic" but the majority of the people spoke their local dialects from town to town (flemishes or walloons). There was no "standard" language anywhere. Walloon languages maybe closer to French so the switch by the time was easier and most of the walloons don't speak walloon anymore even if they remind some words.

[edipires]

“How does Brussels operate as an trilingual city?”
( Spoiler)

“Actually it doesn’t”
Luxembourg-City: “Amateurs…”

Seriously now: I studied 3 years in Brussels and I have to say, you can get by easily with French and English. I was never in a situation where someone didn’t speak or didn’t want to speak those languages. However, most job providers require or prefer someone who can speak Dutch as well as the other two.

[nellisnellas]

To make things in Brussels even more complicated: there are Dutch speaking schools and they are very popular as they are considered of better quality than FR ones (I'm talking about the image). Many try to subscribe their children in them. So young people are becoming a little more familiar with Dutch which pushes Brussels a little back in the other direction 💁

[HowNoNow]

One little correction: Kids (including mine) do get taught in both languages. It's called immersion and it's offered from 3eme (around 5yrs old). It's not available in all schools nor to all children in the schools that do offer it, but the opportunity to be taught 50/50% in FR/NL is available.

[alozzzy]

I had a chance to travel to Brussels for a school trip (uni). You did a really good job at captivating my attention and explaining the concepts about this strange but amazing city. I thoroughly enjoyed your delivery.

[pawion]

2:32 The explanation of Belgium's turbulent linguistic history is unfortunately misleading. This is often the case since the subject is quite complex.

In short, in the south of Belgium that would later become Wallonia, the majority of the population spoke Walloon. Nowadays it is considered a language in its own right, but at the time it was regarded as an improper dialect of French. Note that the difference between a language and a dialect is very vague, for example French and Walloon could both be considered Langue d'Oïl dialects.

In the north of the country, what would later become Flanders (even though the historical eponym county covered only a fraction of the region), the population spoke a set of Dutch dialects (Flemish, Brabantian, Limburgish and so on). Abusively, we would tend to call them "Flemish" today by association.

In fact, French wasn't really a native language in Belgium. At the time, it established itself as a lingua franca in Europe, and a prestige language within the Belgian upper class. Thus the Belgian bourgeoisie (i.e. from Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels, independently from current regional borders) was Francophile.

It is to be pointed out that Wallonia underwent a massive francization after WW1 when French became the language of mandatory education while Walloon was banned from schools. Unaware of that, it's easy to think that the Belgian bourgeoisie was Walloon when in fact the opposite was truer; the overwhelming majority of the French-speaking ruling class came from Brussels and the north of the country.

Most Belgian cities had a powerful minority of French-speakers, pejoratively known as Franskiljoens in Dutch or Franskilons in Walloon. One can easily see the considerable influence of French in today's Flemish society. Precisely the Flemish Movement was born out that struggle to free Flemings from the Francophile rule. It resulted in Dutch being officially recognized, unlike their dialects, for the new-founded Flemish Community in Flanders and Brussels.

[PVMe]

It's not surprising that English can't be used in the administration as it is not an official language in Brussels (nor in Belgium, though).
Knowing that they're gonna live here, expats should make the effort to learn French and/or Dutch before moving to the country.

[guldklimp]

I'm swedish but live in France so french comes quite natural to me. The few times I've been to Brussels i haven't needed to use anything other than french, and if I remember correctly they've all approched me in French. But my english speaking friend had no problem getting by in english. I haven't heard a lot of dutch in the city...

[dansanger]

From your stats, it seems like Brussels is overwhelmingly French, with English spoken for the benefit of foreigners, and Dutch spoken by a relatively tiny minority.

[BoonBreyne]

Reminds me of this funny situation I once had in a pizzeria... So imagine you're a native Dutch speaker recently moved to Brussels, but you know the city operates mostly in French outside of the European quarter, but you also know that many pizzeria owners are Italian... So, in this case I was mildly panicking when I entered and a waitress approached me. She says "Bonsoir, hello!", so I'm like "ouf, thanks for clearing that up already, you speak French and English" and I continue in French. I notice her French wasn't super fluent though, so I doubt whether I should switch to English instead, she might be an English native speaker... Anyway I went to sit down at a table, read the menu, which is in Italian of course. And in the background I hear the waitress speak perfect Dutch with a colleague and I'm like "HANG ON!" "We picked the wrong language to start off with!" :D It can be so funny. Another time I had a conversation in a shop with another Dutch native speaker in French until he noticed the system to pay by debit card turned to Dutch when I held my card next to it. Then we switched to Dutch. Ah, Brussels!

[jakeevara]

In your hypothetical day in Brussels, you mention a coffee shop. Almost anywhere in Brussels, the service industry *hypothetically* works in both languages, but in practice works in French. You'll never fail to get served in French, but may very well fail to get served in Dutch, depending on where in the city you are.

[adrienrenaux]

Great video! One thing that wouldn't be as true is that English is a lingua franca for everyone. It is within the rich expat community and in the contacts this community has with the rest of the people, but I feel like in the majority of Brussels, french is the most common language, and that's the one spoken in stores, the street, and everything. The Flemish speakers are kind of concentrated in some neighborhoods

[tahirrizwan]

I’ve been to Brussels 2 years ago and I constantly had to ask if they spoke “Français or Nederlands” because I’m from Holland and speak French as well. I find Brussels overwhelmingly French with small pockets of Dutch (Vlaams) it’s fascinating how the Walen(Walloons) are viewed. They almost never want to speak Dutch, but the Vlamingen(Flemish) have to learn French. It’s an odd situation that can be compared to the sizeable expat community in Amsterdam. They never learn Dutch, and always force people to speak English whereas the old immigrant pop. from Turkish and Moroccan origin always did learn Dutch. It’s quite annoying. haha

[robertalexanderho]

Here here, I loved this city so much I managed to buy an apartment to do my art. Everything is walkableand the everything is just 30 minutes walk From my apartment. Food is fabulous.

[leventculhan]

"trilingual city" bruh 92% speak french

[koopalibrary]

I remember the first time I was in Brussels. Most of the ppl on the counter did not understand flemish. Something of a surprise after being taught Brussels was bilingual in school. False advertisement if you ask me.

[xlappart]

In Brussels i spaeak automaticly french (97% of Brussels people speaking )

[italixgaming]

I spent a few days in Brussels and I was able to communicate with everyone I met in French. I haven't been in a situation where I needed to switch to English.

[TravelingisFREEDOM]

This seems to be a very charming place, I hope I can visit sometime in the future. Seeing and sharing places like this is why I love traveling and make videos so much! And please keep up the great job! Subscribed!!