Belgian French

Belgian French and standard French are mutually intelligible, but there are differences in vocabulary, which have several causes:

• the influence of Dutch (also known as Flemish) and German, which are also official languages in Belgium;
• mere regionalisms: the fact that Belgium was politically separated from France in the last centuries diminished the opportunities of vocabulary unification; this shows particularly in fields like eating and public administration.

One notable difference between Belgian and standard French, is the use of the word septante for seventy, as opposed to soixante-dix (literally 'sixty-ten') and nonante for ninety, as opposed to quatre-vingts-dix (literally 'four score and ten').

There are also differences in the pronunciation, but they are not much bigger than, say, the differences between the pronunciations heard in Marseille and Paris. The most significant difference is that the letter 'w' is almost always pronounced the same was as in English, while French people say 'v'. A much less audible difference occurs with the semi-consonant 'u' (as in 'fuir') which tends to [w] in Belgium, as opposed to a semi-consonantic [y] in France.

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