I think it's because Belgians are really good at laughing at themselves. I don't think it's wrong, it made me laugh (I am Belgian btw). I'd rather be able to laugh at my own country than being offended everytime someone joked about it, I think it makes Belgians rather nice.
+Eden Zak I think being able to laugh at yourself shows some kind of maturity and humbleness. Moreover, how can you criticize someone that is already making fun of himself? Love belgian surrealism & f*** nationalism
Actually, in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium ALL foreign tv-shows are in their original language, with Dutch subtitles, because we can read, listen and watch at the same time :-)
I believe it actually works the other way around ; you're able to read, listen and watch in multiple languages because if you want to watch a show/movie or just the TV, you're going to have to listen to it in English since there are so few movies dubbed in Dutch. On the other hand, French is a more popular language, and almost every movies are dubbed in French, so french speaking people don't bother. There's a reason why French are so bad at speaking English.
Actually, these days the ability is there to dub everything without much delay or issue, a lot of kids shows are dubbed. Mature audiences however prefer subs, it both aids in learning and maintaining languages and preserves the integrity of the media you are watching. Everyone knows about how horrible French, German, Russian and other dubs are and we prefer the originals.
Spent a little time in Belgium when I was stationed in Germany years ago, and I've got nothing but great memories of the country and the people. Everyone was so very nice...
@@mutimateco I doubt a person who spent maybe ten days there as a tourist like myself has a very realistic impression, I defer to your experience of course. I was there in the mid-eighties.
Belgians and Dutch people are very different and can definitely learn from each other. I am Belgian, and I love learning to be more open and honest from my Dutch friends. :-)
I don't get why they are making fun of Belgium not understanding dialogue because we learn English, French, Dutch and German all when we're teenagers...
+Red Oh but the loud (obnoxious, agressive, assertive, extraverted) and rude part is defineately true. I'm just saying the slow/timid/vague/naive/(dumb) stereotypes are usually reserved for the Belgians.
My father here in Flanders when selling a swimming pool has to talk about how to keep it clean and obviously there are many options. One of them he's very much against but he still has to bring it up so the people have the choice. It's using salt. He always sais it comes from the Netherlands because it was cheaper.
OMG! i am an indian and i somehow come across this video.i see the comments and the video. I cant believe how nice people from belgium are! even in comments sections, you guys are so cool! weldone!!
That awkward moment when you want to talk about the difficulty of translating tv-shows, taking Belgium as an example for being stupid, when Belgium and the Netherlands are surrounded by countries where almost every tv-show get dubbed. Oh Hugh!
I had a layover in Brussels and ended up spending an entire unplanned week exploring Belgium because it was so nice. Beautiful place and the people, food and sights were fantastic. I'll be back!
My pleasure friend! I'm sipping on a beer out of the Westmalle glass I brought home with me right now. I've already made plans to visit next Spring. I'm almost out of chocolate, I must return!!
thank you for that kind of positivity! A lot of people are being quite rude or jealous, who knows. Just reminds me of insecure, unhappy, jealous bullies. People should be kinder to each other so kudos! :)
I've only known one Belgian, and she was one of the most impressive persons I have ever met. Sharp, hard-working, kind, and gorgeous (which always helps).
We Belgians actually like making a little fun of ourselves :D I mean, you gotta be able to do that. It shows way more pride and bravery than denying anything that isn't ideal about you.
Watching this makes me wanna travel to Belgium. As a northern european who's traveled a lot and never really heard anything about the country other than the stereotypes (chocolate and... yeah.) it seems like an interesting place to visit. You just don't hear much about them, other than when you bump into that one belgian backpacker tourist with an acoustic guitar that appears in every european city.
I know this is late but Brussels isn't worth it, Manneken Pis is tiny, and the waffles with giant piles of toppings that they sell in the streets adjacent to Manneken Pis and the Grand Place are tourist waffles. We Belgians eat waffles with fresh fruit OR hot cherries OR just a bit of powdered sugar and maybe a splash of whipped cream. Bruges is great for cuberdons and overpriced chocolate, and the historical center is pretty in that medieval way, but if I had to recommend cities to visit I'd go for Mechelen, Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven. Bonus for Antwerp and Mechelen: when you land in Brussels, you take a train, half an hour to get to Mechelen, another half hour to get to Antwerp - the two of them lie in a straight line. Take no more than a day for Mechelen, it's not that big but it's cozy and has the same medieval charm as Bruges. It also, just like Bruges, has a beer factory where you can get a tour. Ghent is my personal favorite and has a lot to see. Leuven has the most ostentatious town hall I've ever seen basically because its main purpose was to be more ostentatious than the Brussels one, and good food at student prices.
I dunno if still off use butwe throw around the stereotypes because we don't have enough space left to store all the waffles and beer in! so we need tourists to come and try them!
Love Belgians. They are very friendly and quite cosmopolitan for such a small nation. I think maybe they have to be so friendly because they are too small to make enemies.
cosmopolitan, you mean the cocktail? jk, we're very multiracial indeed, after being stepped on by the germans twice, we know how to act nice (we're also a neutral country)
Well, I just think I hardly ever got to a nicer place in the world than Belgium: it's all so different from one place to another, and those differences are all immensely beautiful. You'll have deep valleys and forests you might think you're in the Alps, and, well, you're just a few feet up from the ground, and it's the lovely rolling hillside of the Ardennes... then you'll meet Dutch-looking golden wee towns such as Tournai, Veurne, Ieper and you'll wander whether those peculiar houses actually taste like wafels... then again you'll pass through swamplands and polders and you'll surely think you're in Holland, but there's plenty more forests all around and nature is so wild, and that's Flanders... then you'll get to Brugge or Gent and you'll wonder whether you really have time enough to visit Amsterdam as you had planned... back to Brussels, okay, a wee bit too chaotic and 'European', but I'd rather keep my feet stamped on the Grand Place than walk anywhere else in the world... but then again you'll venture up to the Kempen and, wow, if you love wandering through woodlands, pass across canals and wee brooks, that's heaven for you... there's a wee town called Bree, it's where Kim Clijsters was born, and that to me is absolutely one of the prettiest things I've ever seen... finally, you'll head to the coastline and probably go camping: lucky you, you've got marshlands and dunes, and let me tell you: if it's raining or even storming out, it's even more exciting, wild beautiful landscapes, windmills and all, and... you know, I'm from Scotland and I used to think the North Sea was simply such a dull boring empty space... in Belgium I stood in front of something wonderful, those grey and white waves crashing onto the shore and everything... apart from waffles and chocolate and beer of course, enough said... Aye, I'd facncy starting a living up in Belgium, I would.
??? I sincerely cannot understand you... I'd never 'sod anyone off' becvause he speaks his mind out... it's tastes, lad... I just can't get all this anger...
I adore Belgium, but I also adore flat lands, I have to be honest, I'm partial on this. I also love the rain, which is not very 'Scottish'... You know, once you have to bump into mountains... mountains... mountains... lakes... lakes... roundabouts... mountains again... and so on, well, you DO need open spaces. I'm from the Lowlands, Ayr, right on the west-coast seafront, and I always have a wee walk by the seaside (we don't have beaches though), and I love staring at the sea... it's my own open space... and mind you, I'm not a highlander, I don't live in any valley or whatever sounds 'so Scottish'... The people? Many believe that the Belgians are dull. My point of view is totally different. First of all, there's Flemish and there's Walloons and then there's also Brusselaars... the three of them make the Belgians. No, you're not dull at all: you've been raped by the ones around you, you suffered bombings and sorts, and these populations around you often feel they have some right to speak over you. I hate this thing. I hate French snobbery. I hate German ruling, I hate Dutch rudeness and let me tell you: I hate English (not much British) colonialism. Now we'll have Brexit, probably, and this is all the English's fault... they're voting us Scots and Welsh OUT, and the Welsh seem to follow, thus they're calling themselves out of Britain right now... we Scots will probably do the same soon, and I don't like that, I'm a unionist. But it's all the English's fault, they do think they rule Britain and want everyone else out. They've come to Belgium along with the Yanks to 'defend you', yet they put their amount of raping as well... The Belgians 'gained' some sort of self-deprecation tendency out of that, but if you set this aside, you'll find you're 100 times more human and sincere compared to them. That's why the Scots love you. We're proud, aye, but we also prefer human bonds to any sort of pseudo-superiority. I used to like the Dutch once, then I found out how really rude and greedy they tend to be. And some of them also spoke badly of you Belgians. Maybe not as badly as the French do, but they did. And I couldn't understand that. You're an honest people, you're hard workers, but you also have a deep sense of beauty, art, you have good taste, you RESPECT other people and never try and mock them. You may have a wee bit of a problem with racism in Flanders, and down south people might be clinging to Belgium in order not to fall into drama once they might be left alone, but all this compared to the rest of Europe is GOLD. The Scandinavians also tend to be very respectful, but I've never really understood whether they simply pretend or they're true. You're true indeed, instead.
And this is what makes me happy, because I can feel 'the people' in you, and mind you: I'm a Scottish unionist, so I believe there's a people behind us Scots as well as behind us Brits... I always feel you're all Belgians, no matter if you're Flemish or Walloon, though a language barrier can be hard to break. Thanks, Annelien. ;-)
Looks like days on acid was working great for you :) Thanks a lot though: this cheered me up, made me even want to make some more trips throughout Belgium. Coming from a Belgian who likes to laugh with Belgium and is kind of used to being laughed about because of Belgium. ;)
We're not “thrilled that we're even mentioned”, we don't care that much really, because we can laugh at ourselves. You can call us quietly confident. At the end of the day we're not stupid, don't forget we are talking to YOU in YOUR language, not the other way around. On average Belgians speak 3-4 languages .. I know, we're smart like that :-)
The thing is, the Graham Norton Show is just that kind of show. They say a lot of things that could be considered rude, but it's all in good laugh, as Hugh Laurie pointed out. And the interviewer was totally right, Belgium is such a little country and we're just happy whenever there's a mention of us Belgians. To be honest, I don't even know how that could've offended us. It's called humour? Belgium was just the first European country that popped into his mind when he was thinking of making a little joke. He must've felt so bad when they showed that bit, but he shouldn't have. If he was being 100% rude about Belgium, without joking, we might've been offended. Or we just would've ignored it and gone on with our lives (probably). If we were offended, we wouldn't be showing the clip on national tv and having a laugh about it. Belgians are pretty good sports, you know :)
A member of my family is a Malinois, a Belgian Shepherd Dog. Apart from being extremely handsome and witty, he is also highly intelligent and very quick on the uptake. Just thought I'd mention it.
It is something we (Belgians) actually might have in common with English people (I dare not say British here as I don't know if it applies to the rest of uk). There is some clip where Stephen Fry ( big friend of Laurie for those who don't know him) explain the difference between English and US humor and the difference is that in the English joke, the butt of the joke is the teller of the joke whereas in US humor it will be someone else. I guess this sense of self-depreciating humor is one of the few traits that is truly Belgian and not just Flemish or Walloon.
@Rico Ten Uh ? You claim to have seen every single tv intervention of Stephen Fry ? Or did you criticize without properly reading what I said 4 years ago.
That's what i like about British humor......(I'me Belgian by the way), you people have a wonderful sense of humor : from Monty Python to Rowan Atkinson!!!! Thumbs up!
Oddly enough, I don't see why Belgium would have a problem with the wordy, dialogue heavy shows. At least not the Flemish part (where Cafe Corsari took place), since we just subtitle everything except the programs intended for the youngest of kids. The French, they dub everything. In Spain, everything is dubbed. Not Flanders or the Netherlands. Also, were we really mocked? I don't think so. Not really.
I've seen the show in english and translated, the problem isn't the wordy part but the heavy play on words and jokes. Most of them can't be translated at all or they just don't make sense. A lot of references to well known US people from the present or the past are also a hell to translate. Just imagine any dialogue mentioning US politicians or (just an example) Shirley Temple .. we don't even know these people !
The stupid thing is... We don't even translate the show. -.- The french do, the germans do, the dutch oftentimes do,... We don't. Yet another reason to feel misunderstood. :.( xD
You thought that in The Netherlands we dub adult shows? Thank God that doesn't happen, it's bad enough they do it for kid shows! Everything else just gets subtitled, as it should be!
Here in Belgium we eat jokes about us for breakfast. We often joke about ourselves. We joke about inviting children to basements as proper social conduct, about what a well oiled machine our political landscape is, about how we stole the world record from Irak (most days without a functioning government), and we have this known statue in Brussels as a symbol for a fundamental lack of pride. BUT we don't joke around about our fries. They're Belgian. And french people claiming fries theirs should be clubbed with a baguette and left bleeding in the moonlight.
Belgium is the jewel of Europe. It's just the best place to visit. I live in Spain and was born in NL. Everytime I go to Brussels I can't stress enough how good the food is and how friendly people are.
We cheered cause that was funny and we have no problem making fun of ourselves. Like this whole clip, it's hilarious xD Also, we don't translate any british or american television shows over here ;)
I am a portuguese citizen working in belgium and i got to say this,who gets offended by hugh comments simply has no sense of humor...i' was living in brussels before and now i'm in antwerpen and altough the two cities are very diferent one thing is clear,altough the belgiums are not a very warm and joyfull people they are very respectful and kind people,even to an emigrant as myself....
Got to love the fact that a lot of North-western Europeans have the same general sense of self-deprecating humour. If you make fun of a British, German, Dutch, Belgian or Scandinavian person they're probably going to be the one who laughs the loudest.
well the guy in the end IS being rude. But we are used to being mocked but we just don't really give a damn about it. it's just a good occasion to laugh and drink beers. I do have plenty of aself-mockery :p btw I saw a study showing Belgium as one of the ten first country of a list with country that are considered benefic to the world. Well scandinavian country are on the top of it but we can be proud to be ninth ;)
We Belgians are proud of our humor sense !! We're not getting offended by every single spike we get we just laugh about it and that's it.Life is already hard to be concerned by minor things like soft mockery :)
i think most belgians that watch house only read subtitles with one eye, if at all. A very large part of the population has a pretty good understanding of english maybe we can't speak of write fluently but we do understand difficult sentences and medical terms and that sort of stuff, the complex ones.
Watch British comedian John Finnemore on why we always come back to the Belgians! It's partly because to the english-speaking ear it's a weird two syllables to put back to back. But we still love you. Nothing personal!
It's funny cuz it's true :D Though i would imagine it's because i'm belgian. I mean if you said stuff like this to french people, just imagine the reponse!
could have been a lot worse, I am Dutch, and British comedian John Dowie wrote a song about hating the Dutch, the song is called "British tourist" and it can be found on is EP "Another close shave" and that can be found in total on youtube, and the song is actually quite funny
What made me laugh was the idea that dialogue heavy shows are difficult to subtitle, as if there wouldn't be enough time or space to put in all words. Well guess what? We are fast readers. You kind of have to be as a small language. But I've seen English subtitles for foreign movies, and they don't even translate half of what is said, so I understand where he is coming from. Greetings from neighbouring country the Netherlands!
I think the show "House" was received and understood in Belgium in particular and the continent overall better than the UK because people in Belgium and mainland Europe really pride themselves on being understood clearly and speak English so well. The UK has such a struggle with articulation, enunciation, clear pronunciation etc. Too bad so many Brits mumble and speak as though they are suffering from tooth decay.
It's true, whenever Belgium or anyone from Belgium is mentioned on TV or in a movie outside of our country, we can't stop talking about it. We're tiny as fuck, so we don't get noticed a lot so at those rare few times that we do get noticed, we gotta make that shit count. Also, I'd like to point out that, in my region at least, most people can fluently speak 3 languages (French, Dutch and English) by the time they're sixteen. At the very least, they know the basics of it, but in most cases they can speak it fluently. Maybe it's just my local pride talking, but any country whose inhabitants can do that has something to be proud of. Hell, in my case, I didn't even have to wait for school to start learning French or English because I just picked it up on the street or on TV. And that's true for a lot of people around here.
I wouldn't be so sure of the French 'fluency' skills of many Flemish youngsters these days... The smartest ones, yes of course... But it all depends on the walk of life and place of living.. Ranging from basic conversations to doing politics in both languages at the federal level. Also, many have a functional but sub-optimal French (e.g. as reported by a native Francopohone about other common friends' French skills): a) great accent, but weird sense of grammar ; or b) strong West-Vlaams accent, good spoken French and vocabulary, but spelling is an absolute disaster while texting, etc. As we know, having a perfect French is super time-consuming endeavour. And nowadays young people invest more time in absorbing most of the international material in English. And the Francophones in Belgium are surely lagging behind in the Nederlands deparment. So it's all a bit relative and very different... Like ALL of Belgium to be honest. So different from place to place.
yeah saying belguim people are stupid ife seen a lot of videos of americans not even knowing how many sides a triangle has sry for my englisch at least i do know another language
CGSU Belgium amerika staat boven belgie, en belgie staat gedoemd te mislukken. Hoe sneller je dat aanvaard en je inbind met de Nederlandstalige kant des te beter je leven wordt... Spijtig dat ik zoveel zielige mensen rondom mij zie en elke dag medelijden krijg met iedereen in Vlaanderen. Ik word niet goed van mensen zoals jij die Belgie proberen goed te praten terwijl het indruist tegen alle redelijkheid.
Anthony G ja sws nen ollander, wtFUCK bedoel je met Amerika staat boven België, ze werken samen in zowel alles wat leger betreft + de Belgische geschiedenis is veeeeeel beter en mooier dan die van de Amerikanen. Julius caesar zij dat het Belgische volk de sterkste en dapperste volk was dat hij ooit tegen gevochten had. Ik ik weet niet wat je bedoeld met mislukkingen België is toch een rijk en goed land om in te leven !
Anthony G Nederland heeft natte dromen dat het rijke Vlaanderen ooit terug gaat aanhechten aan Nederland. Zodat ze ons terug kunnen leegzuigen dit is een van de redenen waarom we met de Walen gevochten hebben tegen jullie en oja ook gewonnen hebben. Vlaanderen heeft twee keuzes alleen voort gaan of lekker gezellig samen blijven met de Walen. Want Nederland is geen optie !
As a Belgian myself, we can laugh about ourselves and we love to have self-deprecating humor. Which the Brits also have. We just don't take ourselves too seriously and as long as it's in good faith, joke away. But I invite you all to visit our weird little country and I'm sure you'll find we're quite pleasant and not that boring after all. This being said, the British invented cricket, so who are they to call anyone else boring. :-)
We don't take stuff too seriously here in Belgium. And talking about our smarts, we have three national languages and a big percentage also knows how to talk english, we invented a shitload of stuff, have the best beers/chocolate/waffles in the wold, didn't invade the United States when they started to call our fries "french", because their soldiers were in the Ardennes when they came into contact with this dish and thought that the french speaking people there were french and not Belgian. And on a sidenote, the talkshow Hugh laurie was on, was a dutch talkshow. And in the dutch part, we don't dub movies or tv shows, we watch them in their native language and subtitle them.
0:52 This is the part where a flemish militia member reveals his goedendag. A walloon coustellier presents his spear. FAL's, FNC's, SCAR's and P90's get cocked and aimed. Snelle eddy appears with a crowbar, Elio di rupo presents his cane....it is at this moment, Hugh found out that eventually, Belgium is perfectly fine with insulting them itself
Belgians are very very Smart. They clearly understand what humor is all about. They take intact face value. You should hear the jokes THEY crack about the other nationalities and cultures... Once again, humor and comics are a healthy part of their culture
He didn't actually make fun of Belgians or insult them in the first clip, though. That's what made the subsequent conversations kind of weird. He said he didn't understand why House was so popular in other countries with different languages, when it must be so hard to translate. Belgium was just a random country he thought of where it was popular. I really don't get what was rude in any way about what he said. I thought they were just joking around to pretend he had insulted them when they knew he hadn't.
We have 3 different governments i mean our country is pretty much a joke we shit on it all the time and yet we are proud of it biggest example i can think of is our public healthcare maggie de block the biggest meme of our country
The funniest part is that we as Belgians; don't translate any shows ;) we are smart enough to watch shows in english (even if some use subtitles); so ANY show works here :p
TBH, the real "mistake" with his example, is that Belgian doesn't even bother to translate (atleast not dub) many shows like House. The Majority of shows like it, We just watch in english with subtitles (well the flemish side atleast, the walloons tend to use the french dubs more often AFAIK)
funny if the first Belgian king didn't lose his first wife he would've been a prince of Britain.. that said i love Laurie as comedic actor and actor in general .!
![Ricky Gervais - "This Might Be The Best Chat show Ever!" - 2/2 Visits In Chron. Order [720p]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/w5MoEbhU6yk/mqdefault.jpg)
I think it's because Belgians are really good at laughing at themselves. I don't think it's wrong, it made me laugh (I am Belgian btw). I'd rather be able to laugh at my own country than being offended everytime someone joked about it, I think it makes Belgians rather nice.
Eden Zak same here (belgian too)
+Eden Zak I think being able to laugh at yourself shows some kind of maturity and humbleness. Moreover, how can you criticize someone that is already making fun of himself?
Love belgian surrealism & f*** nationalism
zelfspot moet kunnen
No, it's because their dumb, and traitors to the Dutch Empire.
they're :)
Actually, in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium ALL foreign tv-shows are in their original language, with Dutch subtitles, because we can read, listen and watch at the same time :-)
And usually we speak and understand English well enough to understand an American or British show without subtitles.
Or they're simply made in Flanders! :D
I believe it actually works the other way around ; you're able to read, listen and watch in multiple languages because if you want to watch a show/movie or just the TV, you're going to have to listen to it in English since there are so few movies dubbed in Dutch. On the other hand, French is a more popular language, and almost every movies are dubbed in French, so french speaking people don't bother. There's a reason why French are so bad at speaking English.
Actually, these days the ability is there to dub everything without much delay or issue, a lot of kids shows are dubbed.
Mature audiences however prefer subs, it both aids in learning and maintaining languages and preserves the integrity of the media you are watching.
Everyone knows about how horrible French, German, Russian and other dubs are and we prefer the originals.
Silke De Coninck jep also its because we know that half of the actors performance, lies within the intonation and the sound of his or her voice.
Spent a little time in Belgium when I was stationed in Germany years ago, and I've got nothing but great memories of the country and the people. Everyone was so very nice...
As a Belgian that left.... More like fled the country, thats not how i remember it, but if i may ask in which years were you stationed in germany?
@@mutimateco I doubt a person who spent maybe ten days there as a tourist like myself has a very realistic impression, I defer to your experience of course. I was there in the mid-eighties.
as a Dutch guy I think the Belgians are actually very civilised and pleasant, we could learn a thing or two from them.
yeah but i never judge a people on their idiots, everyone has their idiots.
+lebell79 less nationalism always makes people nicer to outsiders^^ (brusselaar hier)
lol, no i really am dutch.
Belgians and Dutch people are very different and can definitely learn from each other. I am Belgian, and I love learning to be more open and honest from my Dutch friends. :-)
ok and in return we will keep philip geubbels. :P
I don't get why they are making fun of Belgium not understanding dialogue because we learn English, French, Dutch and German all when we're teenagers...
True story
Anna P. And we can handle it when people make fun of us
That's really funny you should say that, because Belgians think Dutch people are dumb, greedy loud and obnoxious. It's the other way around here :D
+Red
Oh but the loud (obnoxious, agressive, assertive, extraverted) and rude part is defineately true.
I'm just saying the slow/timid/vague/naive/(dumb) stereotypes are usually reserved for the Belgians.
My father here in Flanders when selling a swimming pool has to talk about how to keep it clean and obviously there are many options.
One of them he's very much against but he still has to bring it up so the people have the choice. It's using salt.
He always sais it comes from the Netherlands because it was cheaper.
OMG! i am an indian and i somehow come across this video.i see the comments and the video. I cant believe how nice people from belgium are! even in comments sections, you guys are so cool! weldone!!
sabari nath Hey! India is Pretty Nice too. You used to be struggling, you still are a bit But You’re are slowly climbing up and up.
well the internet doesn't really show how we really are? nor does the video. come visit it.
We just like being mentioned because most of the time the rest of the world forgets we even exist XD
That awkward moment when you want to talk about the difficulty of translating tv-shows, taking Belgium as an example for being stupid, when Belgium and the Netherlands are surrounded by countries where almost every tv-show get dubbed. Oh Hugh!
I had a layover in Brussels and ended up spending an entire unplanned week exploring Belgium because it was so nice.
Beautiful place and the people, food and sights were fantastic.
I'll be back!
Thank you !
My pleasure friend! I'm sipping on a beer out of the Westmalle glass I brought home with me right now. I've already made plans to visit next Spring. I'm almost out of chocolate, I must return!!
thank you for that kind of positivity! A lot of people are being quite rude or jealous, who knows. Just reminds me of insecure, unhappy, jealous bullies. People should be kinder to each other so kudos! :)
I’ll just be right here
You are welcome here ;)
I've only known one Belgian, and she was one of the most impressive persons I have ever met. Sharp, hard-working, kind, and gorgeous (which always helps).
Yup that's us Belgians
How nice that you remember me! :)
We Belgians actually like making a little fun of ourselves :D
I mean, you gotta be able to do that. It shows way more pride and bravery than denying anything that isn't ideal about you.
True! ;)
@@doeme80 We... don't?
Watching this makes me wanna travel to Belgium. As a northern european who's traveled a lot and never really heard anything about the country other than the stereotypes (chocolate and... yeah.) it seems like an interesting place to visit. You just don't hear much about them, other than when you bump into that one belgian backpacker tourist with an acoustic guitar that appears in every european city.
I know this is late but Brussels isn't worth it, Manneken Pis is tiny, and the waffles with giant piles of toppings that they sell in the streets adjacent to Manneken Pis and the Grand Place are tourist waffles. We Belgians eat waffles with fresh fruit OR hot cherries OR just a bit of powdered sugar and maybe a splash of whipped cream. Bruges is great for cuberdons and overpriced chocolate, and the historical center is pretty in that medieval way, but if I had to recommend cities to visit I'd go for Mechelen, Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven. Bonus for Antwerp and Mechelen: when you land in Brussels, you take a train, half an hour to get to Mechelen, another half hour to get to Antwerp - the two of them lie in a straight line. Take no more than a day for Mechelen, it's not that big but it's cozy and has the same medieval charm as Bruges. It also, just like Bruges, has a beer factory where you can get a tour. Ghent is my personal favorite and has a lot to see. Leuven has the most ostentatious town hall I've ever seen basically because its main purpose was to be more ostentatious than the Brussels one, and good food at student prices.
I dunno if still off use butwe throw around the stereotypes because we don't have enough space left to store all the waffles and beer in! so we need tourists to come and try them!
Love Belgians. They are very friendly and quite cosmopolitan for such a small nation. I think maybe they have to be so friendly because they are too small to make enemies.
cosmopolitan, you mean the cocktail? jk, we're very multiracial indeed, after being stepped on by the germans twice, we know how to act nice (we're also a neutral country)
This is so true. Whenever I hear someone in a show or movie mention Belgium or the Belgians I like it, whatever the context
Well, I just think I hardly ever got to a nicer place in the world than Belgium: it's all so different from one place to another, and those differences are all immensely beautiful. You'll have deep valleys and forests you might think you're in the Alps, and, well, you're just a few feet up from the ground, and it's the lovely rolling hillside of the Ardennes... then you'll meet Dutch-looking golden wee towns such as Tournai, Veurne, Ieper and you'll wander whether those peculiar houses actually taste like wafels... then again you'll pass through swamplands and polders and you'll surely think you're in Holland, but there's plenty more forests all around and nature is so wild, and that's Flanders... then you'll get to Brugge or Gent and you'll wonder whether you really have time enough to visit Amsterdam as you had planned... back to Brussels, okay, a wee bit too chaotic and 'European', but I'd rather keep my feet stamped on the Grand Place than walk anywhere else in the world... but then again you'll venture up to the Kempen and, wow, if you love wandering through woodlands, pass across canals and wee brooks, that's heaven for you... there's a wee town called Bree, it's where Kim Clijsters was born, and that to me is absolutely one of the prettiest things I've ever seen... finally, you'll head to the coastline and probably go camping: lucky you, you've got marshlands and dunes, and let me tell you: if it's raining or even storming out, it's even more exciting, wild beautiful landscapes, windmills and all, and... you know, I'm from Scotland and I used to think the North Sea was simply such a dull boring empty space... in Belgium I stood in front of something wonderful, those grey and white waves crashing onto the shore and everything... apart from waffles and chocolate and beer of course, enough said...
Aye, I'd facncy starting a living up in Belgium, I would.
???
I sincerely cannot understand you...
I'd never 'sod anyone off' becvause he speaks his mind out... it's tastes, lad... I just can't get all this anger...
I adore Belgium, but I also adore flat lands, I have to be honest, I'm partial on this. I also love the rain, which is not very 'Scottish'...
You know, once you have to bump into mountains... mountains... mountains... lakes... lakes... roundabouts... mountains again... and so on, well, you DO need open spaces.
I'm from the Lowlands, Ayr, right on the west-coast seafront, and I always have a wee walk by the seaside (we don't have beaches though), and I love staring at the sea... it's my own open space... and mind you, I'm not a highlander, I don't live in any valley or whatever sounds 'so Scottish'...
The people?
Many believe that the Belgians are dull. My point of view is totally different.
First of all, there's Flemish and there's Walloons and then there's also Brusselaars... the three of them make the Belgians.
No, you're not dull at all: you've been raped by the ones around you, you suffered bombings and sorts, and these populations around you often feel they have some right to speak over you. I hate this thing. I hate French snobbery. I hate German ruling, I hate Dutch rudeness and let me tell you: I hate English (not much British) colonialism.
Now we'll have Brexit, probably, and this is all the English's fault... they're voting us Scots and Welsh OUT, and the Welsh seem to follow, thus they're calling themselves out of Britain right now... we Scots will probably do the same soon, and I don't like that, I'm a unionist. But it's all the English's fault, they do think they rule Britain and want everyone else out.
They've come to Belgium along with the Yanks to 'defend you', yet they put their amount of raping as well...
The Belgians 'gained' some sort of self-deprecation tendency out of that, but if you set this aside, you'll find you're 100 times more human and sincere compared to them.
That's why the Scots love you. We're proud, aye, but we also prefer human bonds to any sort of pseudo-superiority. I used to like the Dutch once, then I found out how really rude and greedy they tend to be. And some of them also spoke badly of you Belgians. Maybe not as badly as the French do, but they did. And I couldn't understand that.
You're an honest people, you're hard workers, but you also have a deep sense of beauty, art, you have good taste, you RESPECT other people and never try and mock them.
You may have a wee bit of a problem with racism in Flanders, and down south people might be clinging to Belgium in order not to fall into drama once they might be left alone, but all this compared to the rest of Europe is GOLD.
The Scandinavians also tend to be very respectful, but I've never really understood whether they simply pretend or they're true.
You're true indeed, instead.
Well as a Belgian, thank you for your kind words :)
And this is what makes me happy, because I can feel 'the people' in you, and mind you: I'm a Scottish unionist, so I believe there's a people behind us Scots as well as behind us Brits... I always feel you're all Belgians, no matter if you're Flemish or Walloon, though a language barrier can be hard to break.
Thanks, Annelien. ;-)
Looks like days on acid was working great for you :) Thanks a lot though: this cheered me up, made me even want to make some more trips throughout Belgium. Coming from a Belgian who likes to laugh with Belgium and is kind of used to being laughed about because of Belgium. ;)
We're not “thrilled that we're even mentioned”, we don't care that much really, because we can laugh at ourselves. You can call us quietly confident. At the end of the day we're not stupid, don't forget we are talking to YOU in YOUR language, not the other way around. On average Belgians speak 3-4 languages .. I know, we're smart like that :-)
Maaaaaaaaaan
Like the Swiss! Huh!
Well said!!
And I agree it is a lovely country, with wonderful people
The thing is, the Graham Norton Show is just that kind of show. They say a lot of things that could be considered rude, but it's all in good laugh, as Hugh Laurie pointed out.
And the interviewer was totally right, Belgium is such a little country and we're just happy whenever there's a mention of us Belgians.
To be honest, I don't even know how that could've offended us. It's called humour?
Belgium was just the first European country that popped into his mind when he was thinking of making a little joke.
He must've felt so bad when they showed that bit, but he shouldn't have. If he was being 100% rude about Belgium, without joking, we might've been offended. Or we just would've ignored it and gone on with our lives (probably).
If we were offended, we wouldn't be showing the clip on national tv and having a laugh about it.
Belgians are pretty good sports, you know :)
So true! ( I'm also from belgium btw ;D )
The reaction to this clip is one of the many reasons that I love Belgium and all the chocolate-smelling people there.
We still love you Hugh! One of the best British actors out there and there is some tough competition.
A member of my family is a Malinois, a Belgian Shepherd Dog. Apart from being extremely handsome and witty, he is also highly intelligent and very quick on the uptake. Just thought I'd mention it.
Yep, n Mechelse herder. K heb nog nooit gehoord van n Engelse herder hahaha
mine too! And rather complex also 🥰
It is something we (Belgians) actually might have in common with English people (I dare not say British here as I don't know if it applies to the rest of uk). There is some clip where Stephen Fry ( big friend of Laurie for those who don't know him) explain the difference between English and US humor and the difference is that in the English joke, the butt of the joke is the teller of the joke whereas in US humor it will be someone else.
I guess this sense of self-depreciating humor is one of the few traits that is truly Belgian and not just Flemish or Walloon.
@Rico Ten Uh ? You claim to have seen every single tv intervention of Stephen Fry ?
Or did you criticize without properly reading what I said 4 years ago.
@Rico Ten Precisely ! I didn't say "interview", you did !
That's what i like about British humor......(I'me Belgian by the way), you people have a wonderful sense of humor : from Monty Python to Rowan Atkinson!!!! Thumbs up!
Dirk Paulussen I'm English and Dutch. I like Belgians right back. Us Europeans like to make fun of each other but let us not forget our similarities.
It's ok Hugh, no one blames you :p We still love you!
ThePrayerx no we don't
Oddly enough, I don't see why Belgium would have a problem with the wordy, dialogue heavy shows. At least not the Flemish part (where Cafe Corsari took place), since we just subtitle everything except the programs intended for the youngest of kids. The French, they dub everything. In Spain, everything is dubbed. Not Flanders or the Netherlands.
Also, were we really mocked? I don't think so. Not really.
I've seen the show in english and translated, the problem isn't the wordy part but the heavy play on words and jokes. Most of them can't be translated at all or they just don't make sense. A lot of references to well known US people from the present or the past are also a hell to translate. Just imagine any dialogue mentioning US politicians or (just an example) Shirley Temple .. we don't even know these people !
We weren't mocked. We may be little, but our products are worldknown!!!
***** Yes, but ask any 20-30 years old of today in Belgium, they might have no idea.
I was still smiling ^^
Wifi Bee I'm 18 and I know though xd
The stupid thing is...
We don't even translate the show. -.-
The french do, the germans do, the dutch oftentimes do,...
We don't.
Yet another reason to feel misunderstood. :.(
xD
Sadly, the Dutch only do it for childrens programs nowadays. We used to not do that. But series like House we don't translate.
You thought that in The Netherlands we dub adult shows? Thank God that doesn't happen, it's bad enough they do it for kid shows! Everything else just gets subtitled, as it should be!
Actually, there is a lot of french dubbed that are made in belgium because the studios and the actors are cheaper ^^
Here in Belgium we eat jokes about us for breakfast. We often joke about ourselves.
We joke about inviting children to basements as proper social conduct, about what a well oiled machine our political landscape is, about how we stole the world record from Irak (most days without a functioning government), and we have this known statue in Brussels as a symbol for a fundamental lack of pride.
BUT we don't joke around about our fries. They're Belgian. And french people claiming fries theirs should be clubbed with a baguette and left bleeding in the moonlight.
Ah the good old sentence: "We leven in een apenland"
Haha, I just found out he said the same thing about Bulgaria on Conan :D Maybe he have something with the countries that strarts with the letter B :D
"the chocolate smelling belgians".. because we walk around sniffing a piece of chocolate. B-)
Well, I actually live close to the Callebaut chocolate factory and sometimes the smell is so intense it feels like you're actually inhaling chocolate.
Els Verwilgen I WANNA GO THERE
@@Leiake2604 Here we smell the chocolate factore of Herentals when the wind is in the right direction.. It smells oddly well. Not to pure.
The Dutch have weed, we have chocolate.
he can make it up to Belgium by bringing back blackadder!
Yeah, if he does that, I'll give him permission to insult the Netherlands as well, just for an extra episode.
It's been 2 years Laurie, where's that episode?
Yep, bring lord Percy back hahaha
@@Widdekuu91 And France too. And bring back Not The Nine O'clock News too.
Belgium is the jewel of Europe. It's just the best place to visit. I live in Spain and was born in NL. Everytime I go to Brussels I can't stress enough how good the food is and how friendly people are.
Americans for sure would've overreacted and would've tried to boycott Hugh with some stupid hashtag.
Or they would have sued him :)
some americans, most just wouldn't care, I think that is more a larger population so also larger buthurt population thing
We cheered cause that was funny and we have no problem making fun of ourselves.
Like this whole clip, it's hilarious xD
Also, we don't translate any british or american television shows over here ;)
It's right that we don't dub (only for the children we do), but we do use subtitels :)
I am a portuguese citizen working in belgium and i got to say this,who gets offended by hugh comments simply has no sense of humor...i' was living in brussels before and now i'm in antwerpen and altough the two cities are very diferent one thing is clear,altough the belgiums are not a very warm and joyfull people they are very respectful and kind people,even to an emigrant as myself....
Come to the south part of the country if you want to meet the joyfull and warm people :)
if you think belgians aren't warm and joyfull, you haven't met the right people yet, bc they're there, on either side of the country
Got to love the fact that a lot of North-western Europeans have the same general sense of self-deprecating humour. If you make fun of a British, German, Dutch, Belgian or Scandinavian person they're probably going to be the one who laughs the loudest.
well the guy in the end IS being rude. But we are used to being mocked but we just don't really give a damn about it. it's just a good occasion to laugh and drink beers. I do have plenty of aself-mockery :p btw I saw a study showing Belgium as one of the ten first country of a list with country that are considered benefic to the world. Well scandinavian country are on the top of it but we can be proud to be ninth ;)
Yeah we're also in every 'top 10 most boring countries' list, and make it to higher than 9 though...
+Elias hahahaha true :')
I'm belgian and I really like House M.D. ^^
We Belgians are proud of our humor sense !! We're not getting offended by every single spike we get we just laugh about it and that's it.Life is already hard to be concerned by minor things like soft mockery :)
As a Chelsea fan I love Belgium
He wasn't in Charleroi I can tell you that much.
i think most belgians that watch house only read subtitles with one eye, if at all. A very large part of the population has a pretty good understanding of english maybe we can't speak of write fluently but we do understand difficult sentences and medical terms and that sort of stuff, the complex ones.
Watch British comedian John Finnemore on why we always come back to the Belgians! It's partly because to the english-speaking ear it's a weird two syllables to put back to back. But we still love you. Nothing personal!
It's funny cuz it's true :D
Though i would imagine it's because i'm belgian. I mean if you said stuff like this to french people, just imagine the reponse!
+a1b2c3e4 one of Homer Simpson best quotes :)
could have been a lot worse, I am Dutch, and British comedian John Dowie wrote a song about hating the Dutch, the song is called "British tourist" and it can be found on is EP "Another close shave" and that can be found in total on youtube, and the song is actually quite funny
Yeah, Belgian humour can be self derisory sometimes so we generally take these kinds of comments well
What made me laugh was the idea that dialogue heavy shows are difficult to subtitle, as if there wouldn't be enough time or space to put in all words. Well guess what? We are fast readers. You kind of have to be as a small language. But I've seen English subtitles for foreign movies, and they don't even translate half of what is said, so I understand where he is coming from. Greetings from neighbouring country the Netherlands!
great guy
I think the show "House" was received and understood in Belgium in particular and the continent overall better than the UK because people in Belgium and mainland Europe really pride themselves on being understood clearly and speak English so well. The UK has such a struggle with articulation, enunciation, clear pronunciation etc. Too bad so many Brits mumble and speak as though they are suffering from tooth decay.
Yeah have you seen British football players speak? Harry Kane, raheem Stirling et al. They sound so thick
My favourite rant about Belgium. Chemist shops have a monopoly on painkillers and charge over 5 euros!
38p in Tescos!!
Oh man you had the privilege to be next with Freya vandenBosche, my ultimate dream!! ^^))
Great clip. Well done.
Belgium was a bad example but only because we watch most shows subbed, not dubbed. So, no dialogue issues here!
Indeed. And that's why Hugh didn't need a translator or subtitles when he was a guest in Belgium. It's a good way to learn the language.
I love Hugh Laurie❤️❤️
It's true, whenever Belgium or anyone from Belgium is mentioned on TV or in a movie outside of our country, we can't stop talking about it. We're tiny as fuck, so we don't get noticed a lot so at those rare few times that we do get noticed, we gotta make that shit count.
Also, I'd like to point out that, in my region at least, most people can fluently speak 3 languages (French, Dutch and English) by the time they're sixteen. At the very least, they know the basics of it, but in most cases they can speak it fluently. Maybe it's just my local pride talking, but any country whose inhabitants can do that has something to be proud of. Hell, in my case, I didn't even have to wait for school to start learning French or English because I just picked it up on the street or on TV. And that's true for a lot of people around here.
I wouldn't be so sure of the French 'fluency' skills of many Flemish youngsters these days... The smartest ones, yes of course... But it all depends on the walk of life and place of living.. Ranging from basic conversations to doing politics in both languages at the federal level. Also, many have a functional but sub-optimal French (e.g. as reported by a native Francopohone about other common friends' French skills): a) great accent, but weird sense of grammar ; or b) strong West-Vlaams accent, good spoken French and vocabulary, but spelling is an absolute disaster while texting, etc.
As we know, having a perfect French is super time-consuming endeavour. And nowadays young people invest more time in absorbing most of the international material in English.
And the Francophones in Belgium are surely lagging behind in the Nederlands deparment. So it's all a bit relative and very different... Like ALL of Belgium to be honest. So different from place to place.
yeah saying belguim people are stupid ife seen a lot of videos of americans not even knowing how many sides a triangle has sry for my englisch at least i do know another language
Don't take it too seriously.
CGSU Belgium amerika staat boven belgie, en belgie staat gedoemd te mislukken.
Hoe sneller je dat aanvaard en je inbind met de Nederlandstalige kant des te beter je leven wordt...
Spijtig dat ik zoveel zielige mensen rondom mij zie en elke dag medelijden krijg met iedereen in Vlaanderen.
Ik word niet goed van mensen zoals jij die Belgie proberen goed te praten terwijl het indruist tegen alle redelijkheid.
Anthony G zeker nen ollander
Anthony G ja sws nen ollander, wtFUCK bedoel je met Amerika staat boven België, ze werken samen in zowel alles wat leger betreft
+ de Belgische geschiedenis is veeeeeel beter en mooier dan die van de Amerikanen. Julius caesar zij dat het Belgische volk de sterkste en dapperste volk was dat hij ooit tegen gevochten had. Ik ik weet niet wat je bedoeld met mislukkingen België is toch een rijk en goed land om in te leven !
Anthony G Nederland heeft natte dromen dat het rijke Vlaanderen ooit terug gaat aanhechten aan Nederland. Zodat ze ons terug kunnen leegzuigen dit is een van de redenen waarom we met de Walen gevochten hebben tegen jullie en oja ook gewonnen hebben. Vlaanderen heeft twee keuzes alleen voort gaan of lekker gezellig samen blijven met de Walen. Want Nederland is geen optie !
We're just happy to get mentioned by a foreigner
As a Belgian myself, we can laugh about ourselves and we love to have self-deprecating humor. Which the Brits also have. We just don't take ourselves too seriously and as long as it's in good faith, joke away. But I invite you all to visit our weird little country and I'm sure you'll find we're quite pleasant and not that boring after all. This being said, the British invented cricket, so who are they to call anyone else boring. :-)
All we small countries are like that. Whenever the big boys mention us we get all tingly.
We don't take stuff too seriously here in Belgium. And talking about our smarts, we have three national languages and a big percentage also knows how to talk english, we invented a shitload of stuff, have the best beers/chocolate/waffles in the wold, didn't invade the United States when they started to call our fries "french", because their soldiers were in the Ardennes when they came into contact with this dish and thought that the french speaking people there were french and not Belgian.
And on a sidenote, the talkshow Hugh laurie was on, was a dutch talkshow. And in the dutch part, we don't dub movies or tv shows, we watch them in their native language and subtitle them.
Haha, we know we are a little complicated country, and we have a good sense of humor about it :)
well everytime foreigners make fun out of belgians they Always got the south french part speaking in their minds LMAO
some belgians smell like beer.
most*
XD no, i smell like fries
Some bears smell like Belgians.
What?
Grins while drinking a beer :D We get high on our own supply :p
Feels belgian, man
This video had me LOLing for realz!
Jesus, was that Bob Hoskins on the other side of the sofa? It broke my heart when he died and to see him now by surprise...
0:52 This is the part where a flemish militia member reveals his goedendag. A walloon coustellier presents his spear. FAL's, FNC's, SCAR's and P90's get cocked and aimed. Snelle eddy appears with a crowbar, Elio di rupo presents his cane....it is at this moment, Hugh found out that eventually, Belgium is perfectly fine with insulting them itself
Belgians are very very Smart. They clearly understand what humor is all about. They take intact face value. You should hear the jokes THEY crack about the other nationalities and cultures... Once again, humor and comics are a healthy part of their culture
Potverdekke,
It's great to be a belgian
Only if there is partioned glass in the Limo or taxi?????
and i love it!
❤
i am from Antwerp and i am lauging my ass off😂😂
Is er leven op Pluto, kan je dansen op de maan, is er een plek tussen de sterren waar ik heen kan gaan: ik heb getwijfeld over België...
Better to smell like chocolate than to stink like fish and chips
I love the smell of Fish and Chips, the taste even more so!
that made me laugh so f*cking hard
Who is laurie ?
He didn't actually make fun of Belgians or insult them in the first clip, though. That's what made the subsequent conversations kind of weird. He said he didn't understand why House was so popular in other countries with different languages, when it must be so hard to translate. Belgium was just a random country he thought of where it was popular. I really don't get what was rude in any way about what he said. I thought they were just joking around to pretend he had insulted them when they knew he hadn't.
wow didn't know this many Belgian people on youtube
We have 3 different governments i mean our country is pretty much a joke we shit on it all the time and yet we are proud of it biggest example i can think of is our public healthcare maggie de block the biggest meme of our country
And Hugh never returned to the Graham Norton Show after that last visit...
I love House
hahaha that comment at the end ... so funny xp
Slow on the uptake and they cheered because they were pretending to understand it directly 😂 (i'm from Belgium)
The funniest part is that we as Belgians; don't translate any shows ;) we are smart enough to watch shows in english (even if some use subtitles); so ANY show works here :p
TBH, the real "mistake" with his example, is that Belgian doesn't even bother to translate (atleast not dub) many shows like House.
The Majority of shows like it, We just watch in english with subtitles (well the flemish side atleast, the walloons tend to use the french dubs more often AFAIK)
The famous speed bump of 1940
The joke was fun, so we laughed :)
HELLO I FROM BRASIL NICE N_N
I mean duhhh. They get that it's a joke why would they be mad about a joke.
Who is this man ?
2:48 What I do when I try to talk posh.
Self-mockery is a national sport here in Belgium
Belgium makes star gate guns
Belgians are kind!
Laughing at yourself is great!
But yeah, we never dub, ever, most of us at the very least understand English.
He is British omg!
We Belgians got a good sense of humour! :p
belgium is awesome
As a Belgian we will take any publicity we can get even bad publicity
funny if the first Belgian king didn't lose his first wife he would've been a prince of Britain..
that said i love Laurie as comedic actor and actor in general .!
Says lord Percy from Blackadder hahaha :)