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being belgian i know all about the difficulties of having a multilinual culture
half of belgium is dutch speaking, while the other is French speaking, a small part of belgium is German speaking
so in essence every belgian is obligated to speak the three national languages... in theory
the truth is far from a utopia of languages.
it is a fact that the french speaking community does not even bother to speak dutch to those who have dutch as maternal language... while they should be just as proficient in the language as them.
The dutch speaking community however is usually pretty leniant and speaks french without too much hassle, maybe our scholing system emphasises more on the knowledge of french... maybe we are better at mastering another language...
apart from the three official languages, we have lots of immigrants who usually speak very little of any official belgian language, and still expect to be treated as an equal...
Tollerance is a nice thing to have, but there are limits to it...
I agree that when you move to a different country, you should at least make the effort of mastering the language of that country... that is the only way in my eyes you can ever really fit in...
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