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Not sure it's down to the size of the country. More likely, it's the size of the community speaking the language, and the closeness of the language to English

Not sure it's down to the size of the country. More likely, it's the size of the community speaking the language, and the closeness of the language to English, together with some other factors. During my time in Belgium, I found that few Liégeois spoke English, and one simply couldn't get by in Liège without being able to speak French. However, during visits to Antwerp, I could speak in English and people there were happy to reply in English. So why the difference? Dutch is a lot closer to English than French. Both are Germanic languages. I know English and French share a large common vocabulary, but grammar and basic vocabulary are quite different. Dutch isn't spoken much outside of the Netherlands and Flanders, so there's more incentive for the Dutch and Flemish to learn a second language, and the obvious one is English. Many people in Liège actively dislike speaking languages other than French. Not many tourists go to Liège. Brussels, though mostly French speaking, is more international, and gets more tourists, so English is spoken there, though French is preferred.

Vomzor 11y ago
Actually, French is the second language learned in Flanders. English is the third. Flanders uses subtitles, Wallonia dubs. Instead of learning Dutch as their second language most Walloons learn English. This is anecdotal, but I've noticed their English is worse than most people in Flanders. I think this is where the whole dubbing/subtitles also plays a part.
rachbelaid 11y ago
Coming from Belgium, petke is also right about the influence of small language community. In example, in the flamish part (where belgian speak dutch), a lot of tv program and cinema is dub from english and even some cartoon. Where in the Walloons part (where belgian speak only french), we have access to the big tv network from France so we never watch anything in English. But I remember reading that different languages use different sounds spectrum and hearing/understanding languages outside your spectrum is harder. Some languages have overlapping sounds spectrum which make learning different language easier. Now you have also the languages sharing the same roots and as you said somebody who know a germanic language then will have easier to guess/learn new vocabulary.

Vomzor 11y ago

Actually, French is the second language learned in Flanders. English is the third. Flanders uses subtitles, Wallonia dubs. Instead of learning Dutch as their second language most Walloons learn English. This is anecdotal, but I've noticed their English is worse than most people in Flanders. I think this is where the whole dubbing/subtitles also plays a part.

rachbelaid 11y ago

Coming from Belgium, petke is also right about the influence of small language community. In example, in the flamish part (where belgian speak dutch), a lot of tv program and cinema is dub from english and even some cartoon. Where in the Walloons part (where belgian speak only french), we have access to the big tv network from France so we never watch anything in English. But I remember reading that different languages use different sounds spectrum and hearing/understanding languages outside your spectrum is harder. Some languages have overlapping sounds spectrum which make learning different language easier. Now you have also the languages sharing the same roots and as you said somebody who know a germanic language then will have easier to guess/learn new vocabulary.