25 idioms and 38 regionalisms
French has been the language of the courts and the well-off here since the Burgundian dukes ran the Low Countries from Brussels in the 1400s, but most Walloons went on speaking Walloon until the early twentieth century. France annexed the region in 1795, and the new Belgian state of 1830 ran everything in French despite a Dutch-speaking majority. It was school, and the years after 1945, that finished Walloon off at home. What came through is a French with Walloon and Dutch fingerprints all over it. Belgians say septante and nonante, use savoir where France uses pouvoir (“je ne sais pas ouvrir la porte”), hand you things with a “s'il vous plaît”, and in Brussels drop in “une fois”, lifted from Dutch eens. The accent keeps vowels France has merged, so brin and brun still sound different, and wagon starts with a w. And non peut-être, below, means yes, obviously.
Belgium
“at 'pouf' (a word of uncertain origin)”
in a random, haphazard way
Belgian French for doing something with no method at all, whatever falls out however it falls. Answer an exam à pouf and you are guessing every line; plan a holiday à pouf and you have booked precisely nothing. Where 'pouf' itself comes from, nobody is sure.
Belgium
“till soon”
see you later, within the same day
France says à tout à l’heure. Belgium says à tantôt for the same thing, see you later today.
Belgium
“to go to the mustard”
to get told off
In Belgian French this means getting a scolding or dressing down. It is easy to confuse it with the similar sounding idiom about mustard rising to your nose, which instead means losing your temper.
Belgium
“after me, the flies”
not caring what happens once you're gone
The Belgian twist on 'après moi le déluge', the standard-French shrug toward whatever happens once you're out the door. Why Belgian French swapped the flood for flies isn't recorded anywhere.
Belgium
Switzerland
Northern France
“to arrange the cans”
to sort out a dispute, acting as go-between
Used in Belgium, Switzerland and just over the French border to the north, this is what a mediator does: step between two sides who won't speak to each other and quietly patch things up. It carries a slightly makeshift, improvised feel, more a bit of string and tape than a formal settlement, which fits a word, bidon, that elsewhere in French slang means fake or cobbled together.
BelgiumAlsace
a bus shelter
Abribus is the word everywhere else. In Belgium, and in Alsace too, the same word already used for a small newspaper kiosk covers the bus shelter as well.
BelgiumSwitzerlandMoselle
Canada
“to have water in the cellar”
to be wearing trousers that are too short
Said of someone whose trousers ride up short enough to show their socks, as though they had hitched them up to keep dry from a flood down in the basement. Belgians mostly say dans les caves and the Swiss à la cave; this singular form is the one heard in Moselle and Canada.
Belgium
“to have hard”
to be struggling, having a rough time
Belgian French does something standard French won't: bolt an adjective straight onto avoir and skip the usual avoir du mal or avoir des difficultés altogether. J'ai eu dur avec cet examen tells any Walloon or Brussels listener you had a rough time of it, no extra words required. It belongs to a small family of Belgian constructions built the same way, avoir facile, avoir difficile, avoir dur, all short-circuiting the standard grammar.
BelgiumFrance
“to have the melon”
to be insufferably full of yourself
Describes someone whose head has swollen with pride, usually after a bit of success has gone to it.
Belgium
“to have more easy”
to find something easier than someone else does
The mirror image of avoir dur: someone has it easier than the next person, thanks to circumstance rather than effort. It's one of a cluster of Belgian French phrases that bolt an adjective straight onto avoir instead of reaching for avoir de la facilité, and it turns up constantly in ordinary grumbling about who's got the better deal at work or school.
Belgium
“to have an egg to peel with someone”
to have a score to settle with someone
It means there's unfinished business between two people, some dispute or grievance still waiting to be sorted out.
Belgium
“to have a brick in one's stomach”
to long to own your own home
A very Belgian trait: an almost inborn drive to build or own a house of your own rather than rent one.
Belgium
“to beat the butter”
to fumble around without making progress
Belgian for flailing about and getting nowhere, like churning cream that never quite turns into butter.
Belgium
Rwanda
Congo-Brazzaville
Burkina Faso
Mali
to repeat a school year
Standard French pupils redoublent. In Belgium, Rwanda, Congo-Brazzaville, Burkina Faso and Mali they bissent the year.
Belgium
the study leave before university exams
Being shut away with your books before exams gets a rather martial name in Belgium, blocus, the word for a siege. Standard French just calls it les révisions.
BelgiumSwitzerland
a hot water tank
The French heat their water in a chauffe-eau. Belgians and the Swiss have a boiler.
Belgium
junk lying about
In France it would be du bazar. Brol, borrowed from Dutch, covers the mess and the worthless things it is made of.
Belgium
to skip class
French pupils sèchent les cours. Belgian ones brossent.
BelgiumNord-Pas-de-Calais, Picardie
a made-up story, told for fun
Standard French would call it une blague. Belgium and the far north of France have a word of their own for the harmless fib, usually heard in the plural.
Belgiumnorthern France
chicory, the pale forced salad vegetable
France calls it an endive. In Belgium and the north of France it is a chicon, and chicons au gratin, rolled in ham under a cheese sauce, turn up on a lot of winter tables.
Belgium
to fiddle with something
In France chipoter means to pick at your food, or to quibble. In Belgium it means fiddling about with something, the way France would say tripoter.
Liège
a sweet
Standard French says bonbon. Around Liège a chique is a sweet, and across Belgium the word can also mean chewing gum.
Belgium
“green cabbage and cabbage green”
two things presented as different but actually the same
A Belgian way of saying it's much of a muchness. Just flipping the word order to show there's no real difference.
Belgiumnorthern and eastern France, Normandy
a door handle
Most of France reaches for the poignée de porte, or the bec-de-cane. Belgians, and plenty of people in the north and east of France, reach for the clenche.
Belgiumnorthern France
a sweet bake, the catch-all name for pastries
France has no single word to match it. A couque au chocolat is a pain au chocolat and a couque de Dinant is a hard honey biscuit, so viennoiserie is the nearest French catch-all, and even that leaves out the biscuit.
Belgium
a forward roll
Standard French calls it a culbute. Belgian children learn to do a cumulet.
Belgium
a boastful show-off
A Belgian show-off is a dikkenek, a thick neck, borrowed from Dutch. France would say vantard.
BelgiumSwitzerlandCanada
Congo-Kinshasa
HaitiHauts-de-France, Grand Est, Occitanie
to have your midday meal
In standard French you déjeuner at midday and dîner in the evening. Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and parts of France keep dîner for the midday meal, which is the older sense.
BelgiumSwitzerlandCanada
to repeat a school year
France redoubles a year. Belgium, Switzerland and Canada drop the re- and simply double it.
Belgium
“national drache (from an old word for threshing grain)”
the heavy rain that traditionally falls on the national day
The half-joking name Belgians give to the downpour that seems to arrive without fail every 21 July, right as the national day parade gets underway.
BelgiumLorraine, northern France
a little money given to a child as a present
France calls it argent de poche, though a dringuelle is less a weekly allowance than the money that turns up in a birthday card. In Belgium it can also mean a tip.
Belgium
Côte d’Ivoire
“water with a spring in it”
sparkling water
Standard French says eau gazeuse. Belgium and Côte d'Ivoire both ask for eau à ressort, water with a spring in it.
Belgium
a towel, for drying yourself after a wash
In France you dry yourself with a serviette and the dishes with a torchon. The Belgian essuie does both jobs, and this is the one for after the shower.
Belgium
“to be a bird for the cat”
to be an easy target
Said of anyone so defenceless that being pounced on is only a matter of time.
Belgium
“to make of one's nose”
to behave in a boastful, superior way
Belgian French borrowed this one directly from Dutch, where puffing yourself up is pictured as literally making something of your own nose.
Belgium
Luxembourg
a ring binder for papers
A French pupil keeps their notes in a classeur. A Belgian or Luxembourgish one keeps them in a farde.
Belgium
polystyrene foam
Standard French has the mouthful polystyrène expansé. In Belgium the white stuff in the box is frigolite, after a trademark.
BelgiumLuxembourg
Réunion
a mobile phone
France says portable. Belgium, Luxembourg and Réunion named the phone after the network standard it ran on.
Belgium
“it's curdling”
it is freezing cold
France says il fait très froid, or ça caille when being casual. Belgium turns cailler into an adjective and says il fait caillant.
BelgiumQuebecSwitzerlandnorthern France, Savoie
“it is raw out”
it is cold and damp out
Standard French spells it out as il fait froid et humide. Quebec, Switzerland, Belgium, the north of France and Savoie say the weather is cru, raw.
Belgium
“there is no advance”
there is no point
In Belgium avance can mean advantage, so there being no avance means there is nothing to gain. France would say ça ne sert à rien.
Belgiumnorthern France
“it's falling one of those draches (comes from a Flemish word)”
it's pouring rain
This expression describes heavy rainfall or a downpour. 'Drache' is a typical Belgian word that has been added to major French dictionaries like Larousse and Robert.
Belgium
“to play a pig's foot”
to play a mean trick on someone
A Belgian way of saying someone has stabbed you in the back, often right before walking out the door.
Belgium
table football
Ask for a game of baby-foot in France. In a Belgian café the table is a kicker.
Belgium
a student's rented room
France would say chambre d’étudiant. Belgium gets it down to one borrowed Dutch syllable.
BelgiumLorraine
a ruler
Elsewhere a latte is a lath, a thin strip of wood. In Belgium and Lorraine it is also the ruler in your pencil case, what France calls a règle.
Belgium
“the franc has fallen”
to finally understand something
Said the moment the penny drops and something finally clicks.
Belgium
“to bite on one's chewing tobacco”
to hold back a strong emotion
Used when someone grits their teeth and swallows their anger, sadness or impatience rather than showing it.
Belgium
“to not have all one's chips in the same bag”
to not be quite right in the head
A cheerful Belgian way of saying someone's a bit scatty or not firing on all cylinders.
Belgium
“no maybe”
a sarcastic way of saying yes
A Belgian classic, said with a wink. It means the exact opposite of what it appears to, an enthusiastic 'yes' dressed up as a hesitant 'no, maybe'.
BelgiumSwitzerlandCongo-KinshasaAcadia
ninety
France counts its way there with quatre-vingt-dix, four-twenty-ten. Switzerland, Belgium, DR Congo and Acadia just say nonante, nine tens.
Belgium
a small round bread roll
Everywhere else in French a pistolet is a handgun. In Belgium it is also what the baker sells you for Sunday breakfast.
Belgium
“waffle iron policy”
dividing public funds equally between two regions regardless of need
A waffle iron presses two identical halves at once, and Belgian public spending worked much the same way for decades. Money for a project in one language region had to be matched, franc for franc, with a comparable project in the other, whether or not the second project made much sense. It kept an uneasy peace between Flanders and Wallonia, at the cost of a lot of pointless spending.
BelgiumLorraine
a dustpan
The French call it a pelle à balai, a broom shovel. In Belgium and Lorraine you sweep the crumbs into a ramassette.
BelgiumFranceSwitzerland
“round as a shovel's tail”
to be completely drunk
One of many French ways of saying someone's had far too much to drink, this one riffs on the rounded end of a garden shovel's handle.
BelgiumNord-Pas-de-Calais, Picardie
“if it pleases you”
here you are, said when handing something over
Standard French keeps s’il vous plaît for please. In Belgium, Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Picardy it is also what you say as you hand something over, where France would say voilà or tenez.
BelgiumSwitzerlandCongo-Kinshasa
seventy
France says soixante-dix, sixty-ten. Belgium, Switzerland and DR Congo kept the older word.
BelgiumCanadaSwitzerlandOccitanie, Rhône-Alpes
the evening meal
In France the evening meal is le dîner. Where dîner still means lunch, in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada and parts of southern France, the evening meal is le souper.
Belgium
fitted carpet
France says moquette. In Belgium it is a tapis-plain, plain in the old sense of flat, a carpet that runs level to the walls.
BelgiumSwitzerlandAlsace, Lorraine
a zip fastener
In France a zip is a fermeture éclair. In Belgium, Switzerland, Alsace and Lorraine it is a tirette, and a stuck one is just as annoying.
BelgiumCanada
“to fall into the eye”
to strike someone as instantly likeable
The one who falls is the one being admired: you fall into someone's eye when they like what they see. Elsewhere in French, 'taper dans l'œil' does the same job.
BelgiumCanada
a cloth for washing the floor
A French torchon dries the dishes. In Belgium and Canada the same word is the cloth you mop the floor with, the thing France calls a serpillière.
BelgiumFranceSwitzerland
“dishcloth, rag, small carpet”
to have had far too much to drink
A line from a comedy sketch that caught on as slang for being thoroughly drunk.