Grammar
- Germanic influences are also visible:
- Ça me goûte, standard French "ça me plait", "I like it" (only for food), is a calque of Dutch Dat smaakt. Cf Spanish 'me gusta'
- Tu viens avec ?, standard French "Tu m'accompagnes ?", literally "Are you coming with?" (meaning "Are you coming with me?"), is a calque of Dutch Kom je mee?
- Ça tire ici (mainly said in Brussels), compared to standard French "Il y a un courant d'air", "there is a draught", is a calque of the Belgian Dutch Het trekt hier.
- Phrases such as pour + V ; ex : "Passe-moi un bic, pour écrire", standard French "Donne-moi un stylo, afin que je puisse écrire", "Give me a pen, so that I may write / for me to write", is a grammatical structure found in Dutch ("om te +V").
- "Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça pour un animal ?", standard French "Quelle sorte d'animal est-ce là ?", English "What kind of animal is this?" (literally "What is that for an animal?"), Dutch "Wat is dat voor een dier?"
- Usage of une fois ("once") in mid-sentence, especially in Brussels, is a direct translation from the Dutch "eens". French people who want to imitate the Belgian accent often use a lot of "une fois" at the end of the sentences, which is often wrong. Example: "Viens une fois ici" - literally : "Come once here". "Une fois" cannot really be translated in other languages; its function is to soften the meaning of the sentence. The English equivalent would be "Could you come here?" or "Why don't you come here?".
- Jouer poker, should be "Jouer au poker" in standard French. Inspired by the Dutch Poker spelen.
Read more about this topic: Belgian French
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“Grammar is a tricky, inconsistent thing. Being the backbone of speech and writing, it should, we think, be eminently logical, make perfect sense, like the human skeleton. But, of course, the skeleton is arbitrary, too. Why twelve pairs of ribs rather than eleven or thirteen? Why thirty-two teeth? It has something to do with evolution and functionalism—but only sometimes, not always. So there are aspects of grammar that make good, logical sense, and others that do not.”
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