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This brief article from a Belgian website on some characteristics of Belgian French ends with:

Et pour finir, ce que vous ne devez surtout jamais faire devant un Belge : mettre des “une fois” à la fin de la phrase ! D’abord ce n’est pas une expression si utilisée en Belgique, mais surtout nos amis belges comprendront que vous vous moquez d’eux ! À éviter donc si vous ne voulez pas passer pour un Frouze (un Français, de manière péjorative) !

I don't understand why ending a sentence with "une fois" would be considered teasing if the addressee is Belgian. The article does seem somewhat tongue-in-cheek, so perhaps it's a joke; in that case, I don't get the joke. Can somebody toss me a clue?

verbose
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    Decades ago, I worked in Florida with a Belgian lady, whose English was impeccable. Except that she had a habit/verbal tic of ending English sentences with "one time". – Mawg says reinstate Monica Feb 02 '21 at 10:33
  • Nvm, I have deleted my comment. It just seemed odd, because her English as so perfect otherwise. Otoh, friends tell me that I have verbal tics in German and Spanish ( それは人生です (Sore wa jinseidesu) ;-) – Mawg says reinstate Monica Feb 02 '21 at 13:43
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    It sounds so typically Belgian to French ears that there is even a French comedy named "Il était une fois, une fois", whicb tells about a French man that tries to scam people by pretending he is a Belgian prince. "Il était une fois" is the traditional phrasing at the beginning of fairy tales, equivalent to "once upon a time", and they have just added the tag "une fois" to hint at the Belgian "touch". – Greg Feb 03 '21 at 08:52

1 Answers1

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Adding une fois at the end of a sentence is a common way for French to make fun at Belgians because it is a stereotypical ending. Doing it became extremely popular during the seventies and eighties because of some of Coluche's sketches and jokes that were sometimes taken too literally.

Of course, the Belgians are not happy when people make fun or their accent, a deplorable French habit that was recently given a name, glottophobie, and also when people make them look like idiots, but who would be?

This is surely even more annoying since this une fois is not even common among the majority of French-speaking Belgians (Walloon), but rather a characteristic of Dutch speakers (from Flanders) when they speak French or from French speakers from the Bruxelles region, under the influence of the eens (i.e. once) that Dutch sometimes insert into to their sentences. See this page for more details.

Note that it is not just using une fois and mimicking the Belgian accent that made this inappropriate, that's the accumulation of histoires belges (Belgian jokes) that not only made fun of the accent but were also quite disrespectful towards Belgians if taken litteraly. While self-mockery is doable in small doses, it can't be the only topic of every conversation referring to Belgians. It might be compared to blonde stories. If you are a blonde girl and the only thing you hear about you are blonde jokes, you surely aren't going to be happy.

jlliagre
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    Thank you! Can you give me an example of when a Dutch speaker speaking French would add une fois at the end of a sentence? – verbose Feb 01 '21 at 12:18
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    @verbose https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=4K_3aq2dChU – Teleporting Goat Feb 01 '21 at 13:17
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    Note that the character in this moovie (Le dîner de cons) plays a dumb Frenchman who imitates (badly) the Belgian accent. – jlliagre Feb 01 '21 at 13:32
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    @verbose http://projetbabel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1189 – Dimitris Feb 01 '21 at 14:14
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    Nowadays I would think this makes the "joker" more ridiculous than the "victims"... – Laurent S. Feb 01 '21 at 23:33
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    Perhaps point out that une fois is a stereotypical expressions used among Belgians. So for a French native to play it back to them is condescending. English equivalents would be if an Englishman said, "Och Aye" to a Scotsman, or "Top o' the morning" to an Irishman, or if a New Yorker said "woulda coulda" to a Southerner. – Oscar Bravo Feb 02 '21 at 07:35
  • I would also add that Wallon (or maybe just in Liège ?) add sometimes "dis" at the end of the sentence; Peoples from Brussels tends to say "une fois" at the middle of the sentence (Ca te dis d'aller une fois a la cote ?) . Ive worked in Brussels and when i use it in Liège friend tends to mock (gently) my speak (im native from Liege) – CharybdeBE Feb 02 '21 at 07:39
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    I am a native speaker of Dutch from Flanders and I can tell you that "eens" simply doesn't go at the end of a sentence in Dutch. It goes after the auxiliaries hebben (have) or zijn (be) in sentences that use the present perfect. So when people from Flanders speak French, it is not clear to me why they would add it at the end of a sentence; I assume they would tend to put it after the auxiliary. – Tsundoku Feb 02 '21 at 10:20
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    The first sentence that came to my mind with the Flemish form of "un fois" is "Doet da nog ies". It could translate to "fait ça encore un fois". Seems perfectly reasonable to have it at the end of the sentence in certain cases. – Glenn D.J. Feb 02 '21 at 11:42
  • Have you often heard it said as "histoires belges"? I've always heard "blagues belges" or "blagues de belges" or even "blagues sur les belges." Just nitpicking. Great answer. – spaghettibaguetti Feb 02 '21 at 15:45
  • @Tsundoku Eens isn't necessarily at the end of the sentence either when une fois is used in Belgian French. Perhaps something like *Tu viens une fois ici, dis.. – jlliagre Feb 02 '21 at 16:06
  • @jlliagre Yes, that example would also match the syntax in Dutch. – Tsundoku Feb 02 '21 at 16:25
  • @spaghettibaguetti Absolutely. Check Histoires belges et méchantes. – Tsundoku Feb 02 '21 at 16:25
  • @Tsundoku cool. the more you know – spaghettibaguetti Feb 02 '21 at 17:24
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    Lien au passage directement sur Gallica. – ninja米étoilé Feb 02 '21 at 21:39
  • @ZéhontéeBonteuse fascinating stuff. Does the distinction quatorze jours (Belgian), quinze jours (Flemish) still pertain? Should I ask that as a separate question? – verbose Feb 03 '21 at 03:19
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    Belgian here, and what I perceive as a bad Belgian impression is that the Belgian "une fois" has a limited and specific use (as Jiliagre said, it is the same as the Dutch "eens"). It is used to moderate an order (ex: "viens une fois ici"), or to say something like "when the occasion arises" (ex: "je te montrerai une fois, quand je passerai chez toi"). The bad French impression will set a "une fois" in just any sentence (often at the end, I guess it is easier...), which makes no sense to Belgian speakers. Ex: "il fait beau aujourd'hui une fois" would mean zilch in Belgian French. – Greg Feb 03 '21 at 06:17
  • Je connais pas « viens une fois ici » mais « je te montrerai une fois, quand je passerai chez toi », tiens, je pensais que c'était universel ça ? Je te montrerai une bonne fois pour « à un moment donné », est courant au Québec ; dans le TLF il y a une belle fois pour un beau jour. Je sais pas trop. @Greg – ninja米étoilé Feb 03 '21 at 07:20
  • "Une bonne fois" dans ce sens n'est pas usité en Belgique, mais c'est vrai que cela semble proche en sens. En tout cas, de mon expérience, le "je te montrerai une fois" sonne très belge à des oreilles françaises. – Greg Feb 03 '21 at 08:46
  • I find it very funny that we use a similar expression in Romanian ! We say something like (translated) "Come here once" or "Stop once what you are doing". But maybe it's related to what in English is expressed as "at once". Does this apply to the usage of "une fois" in Belgium? Is the meaning of immediacy? Or is it like Zéhontée said "at a certain time"? (In Romanian we also have this distinction, "o data" = "once"/"at once" and "odata" = "sometime") – Sorin Postelnicu Feb 03 '21 at 11:02
  • @SorinPostelnicu It means "sometimes" yes. As Greg mentioned, it's often used to attenuate the force of an imperative or a suggestion: Bois-moi une fois cette bière (drink this beer, but i'm not ordering you to do it right now). This despite the context making it clear the beer will be drunk immediately. In Wallonia, you can have "un coup" used in the same place and with the same meaning. – Eau qui dort Feb 03 '21 at 22:07
  • @Tsundoku I often put eens at the end of a sentence, mainly when expressing an order as mentioned by Greg, or when done so sarcastically. Doet da nu eindelijk is! is very common in Antwerp (I assume that's our dikkenek speaking :-D). – freddieknets Feb 04 '21 at 11:37
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    @freddieknets Ah, that's where I say "ne keer" (which might literally be translated to "une fois"). – Tsundoku Feb 04 '21 at 11:41
  • @Tsundoku Ok fair that works too of course. Though for me ne keer feels less imperative than eens. Clearly purely subjective. – freddieknets Feb 04 '21 at 11:44