Languages, Brussels

seems to me a very special phenomon to find two languages spoken in one city. In Brussels they speak french and dutch. You can say that the city is divided in the french and in the dutch zone. The poeple normally understand each other but not everyone speaks both languages. They told me that a lot of times one speak in dutch and the other responds in french and they understand it each other. Impressing!

I thought that French, being one of the official languages of Belgium, would be the best way to communicate here. Actually though, most of the shop keepers would prefer to speak english to you. In the west of Belgium, in fact, most of the locals do not even speak french, but speak Flemish and English.

Belgium has two languages. French and Flemish (which is the same as Dutch). However In Brussels you won’t experience any difficulties because of this. If you can speak either, most of the people in Brussels speak both. If you can’t speak either, you will find English widely spoken and understood.

In Brussels two languages are spoken, French and Flemish (similar to Dutch). But as tourist you could get by with English very well.