You probably will find more thorough and better documented blog posts about this issue, but many multinationals keep on advertising in English in smaller markets that do not have English as their native language. In Holland some 30 second tv-commercials are entirely in English, no subtitling, nu dubbing, while this billboard in downtown Antwerp, Belgium simply assumes the target audience is fluent in English.
Unlike the chauvinist French speaking minority in southern Belgium, Dutch speaking Antwerp is just way too tolerant. Several dubbed French commercials with out of sync Dutch voice-overs are still being aired on local TV stations.
We speak Dutch: advertisers should acknowledge that fact, no matter how many of us speak several languages.
[Downtown Antwerp, Aug 28, 2006]
This blog is not affiliated with or endorsed by the city of Antwerp, Belgium.
And everyday I thank the gods that Antwerpens are so multi-lingual and tolerant
I’m getting there with Nederlands but oh sooooooo slowly because I do believe I might be the worst student of language in the world … the New Zealand accent has been known to mangle English so imagine how I do with words like ‘koeken’ and ’sneuw’ - which, by the way, involves a fairly major nose-wrinkling session to get the ’sneuw’ sound to come out just right.
[Comment from the author: "I know, Dutch is not an easy language to master when it comes to proununciation ;), although English and Dutch are closely related. But so is German, and that's a real pain for most native English speakers. Anyway, I can get by in 3 foreign languages - for large multinationals it's kind of patronising to assume we take their "one world" advertising for granted.]
Comment by Di — August 31, 2006 @ 11:32 am
It is terribly patronising when the multinationals do it … I do agree.
Lol, how I love you Belgians with your ‘I can get by in 3 foreign languages’ … Gert’s the same, I’ve told him he’ll be a rock start back in New Zealand.
Sometimes it’s mortifying to discover that ‘continent’ you grew up on back in NZ was only a couple of islands, thousands from kilometres from anywhere and that no, English isn’t everywhere
Comment by Di — September 1, 2006 @ 9:41 am
I understand your disconvience, but I like the way everything is beeing done in English these way, I consider it to be “cool”. I just like it. Unlike the french or the germans who just translate/dub everthing they can lay there hands on. We should be proud of our knowlegde of the english language
Comment by Willem Meulemans — July 12, 2007 @ 4:18 pm