La langue d'amour

When I sit down with Belgian francophones and tell my story – about having living in Belgium for about a year they look at me all-astonished. ‘You haven’t learnt your French in that time surely’ Well no- I did spectacularly fail O level French (grade F) at school, spent about nine months in France in my early twenties, and have gone back once every two to three years for a short holiday. So thank you – I take that as a great complement (before it used to be ‘you speak very good French' – pregnant pause- 'for an Englishman’, so I am moving up the scale). 

And though my French is far from great, the positive feedback I get is a far remove from the struggles I had to trying to learn Dutch.  My attempts to learn Dutch really damaged my self-esteem. I invested a lot of time trying to get to grips with the Dutch language (I have the basics but not much more).  I did get free Dutch lessons for about eighteen months – but the learning process was slow. Basically the curriculum was about how to apply for (menial) jobs, explain that you or you or your son/daughter are sick and can’t go to work or school.  The agenda was more about social integration than language skills – and I resented that and internally ‘refused’ to learn.