{"id":19701,"date":"2013-09-13T13:14:18","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T11:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=19701"},"modified":"2014-06-17T17:52:57","modified_gmt":"2014-06-17T15:52:57","slug":"dont-speak-french-talk-to-the-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/dont-speak-french-talk-to-the-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"DON&#8217;T Speak French&#8212;Talk to the Hand!"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>If you plan to go to <strong>Belgium<\/strong> to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.transparent.com\/learn-french\/proficiency-test.html\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>practice your French<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, better stay out of the small city of <strong>Menin<\/strong>, near the French borders&#8212;unless perhaps you got some good skills at expressing yourself with your hands.<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header>As of recently, the local authorities have decided that from now on it would be <em><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">i<\/span>nacceptable <\/strong><\/em>(unacceptable) for anyone working in <em><strong>la mairie<\/strong><\/em>(the city hall) to speak other languages than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.transparent.com\/learn-dutch\/\"><strong><em>le n\u00e9erlandais<\/em> (Dutch.<\/strong><\/a>)<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header>And what if that does not work?<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header>&#8220;No problem.&#8221; People can then resort to <em><strong>option deux<\/strong><\/em><strong>:<\/strong> Communicating by <em><strong>les images<\/strong><\/em> (pictures) or <em><strong>les gestes<\/strong><\/em>(gestures.)Really?In other words, &#8220;if you don&#8217;t speak Dutch, and our pictures are not much of a help, then <strong>talk to the hand<\/strong>&#8220;!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>The &#8220;helping&#8221; pictures in question depict frequent situations such as <em>les mariages<\/em>and (even more frequently in Belgium) <em>les<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flanderstoday.eu\/content\/belgium-leads-western-europe-divorce\"><em>divorces <\/em><\/a>(courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rtbf.be\/info\/societe\/detail_le-francais-interdit-a-menin-on-parle-donc-avec-les-mains?id=8082600\">RTB<\/a><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rtbf.be\/info\/societe\/detail_le-francais-interdit-a-menin-on-parle-donc-avec-les-mains?id=8082600\">F<\/a><\/strong><\/span><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">, the public broadcasting organization of the French Community of Belgium<\/span>)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<\/header>\n<header>Of course, the newly announced decision is not there to make the daily lives of the local <em><strong>francophones<\/strong><\/em> any more convenient.<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header>In fact, the situation at <em><strong>la mairie de Menin<\/strong><\/em> can easily turn into one of those &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/is-this-why-the-french-poke-fun-at-belgium\/\"><strong>Belgian jokes<\/strong><\/a>&#8221; that we&#8217;ve already featured quite a few times here on the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.transparent.com\">Transparent<\/a> <\/strong><strong>French Blog<\/strong><\/span>!<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><strong><em>Jugez-en vous m\u00eames<\/em><\/strong> (you be the judge):<\/header>\n<header><\/header>\n<header><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Flandre : le fran\u00e7ais interdit et remplac\u00e9 par des gestes et des pictogrammes \u00e0 Menin\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p0Og16LYYsw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/header>\n<p>Of course, one can easily understand, and even defend, the new restrictive decision.<\/p>\n<p>After all, <em><strong>la langue officielle<\/strong><\/em>(the official language) in Menin is <strong>Dutch<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The local <em><strong>bourgmestre<\/strong><\/em>, who will soon be faced with important elections, is very explicit about the issue: &#8220;<strong><em>On ne r\u00e9pondra plus qu&#8217;en n\u00e9erlandais. Et si malheureusement les gens ne comprennent pas, on utilisera la langue des signes, des pictogrammes. On mettra en place un syst\u00e8me gestuel pour faire comprendre aux gens qu&#8217;on les aidera en n\u00e9erlandais<\/em><\/strong>&#8221; (&#8220;We will not be answering in any other language than Dutch. And if unfortunately people do not understand, then we will use sign language or pictograms. We will set up a gestural system to explain to people that we will help them in Dutch.&#8221;)<\/p>\n<p>Not all Menin locals disagree with the new requirements.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.transparent.com\/learn-flemish\/\"><em><strong>flamand<\/strong> <\/em>(Flemish)<\/a> man shown in the video above put it this way: &#8220;In Spain, I can&#8217;t speak Dutch. So here, it&#8217;s the same.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, Menin Francophones of all walks of life will continue to express their dissatisfaction with the new prohibitive measures taken by their city&#8212; at the exception of one category of francophone residents from whom,&#8221;oddly enough&#8221;, no one has heard anything yet.<\/p>\n<p>That would be <em><strong>les <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">MIMES<\/span><\/strong><\/em><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> <em>francophones<\/em><\/span><\/strong>.<em><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Art vs Science \/\/ PARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS? (Official Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XRZ-jLOrFfk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">French Mimes: &#8220;<em>Parlez-vous fran\u00e7ais?<\/em>&#8221; &#8211; <em>Non<\/em>, not in Menin<\/span>!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you plan to go to Belgium to practice your French, better stay out of the small city of Menin, near the French borders&#8212;unless perhaps you got some good skills at expressing yourself with your hands. As of recently, the local authorities have decided that from now on it would be inacceptable (unacceptable) for anyone&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/dont-speak-french-talk-to-the-hand\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[275988,8581,275990,3608,316,357,55348,12097,276042,276043,276045,276041,276046],"class_list":["post-19701","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-vocabulary","tag-belgian-jokes","tag-belgique","tag-blagues-belges","tag-dutch","tag-french-culture","tag-french-language","tag-french-mimes","tag-langue-francaise","tag-mairie-de-menin","tag-menin-belgium","tag-neerlendais","tag-pictogram","tag-talk-to-the-hand"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19701"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21141,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19701\/revisions\/21141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}