Belgian French · one sentence a day
French that sounds like Brussels, not a textbook
One sentence a day, graded against how it would be said in Brussels or Liège — septante, à tantôt, une fois, il drache — with the local version shown next to yours. Free, no account needed.
Free every day · No account needed · Takes a minute
What Belgian French actually sounds like
Belgian French is easy to understand and easy to spot. A few of the differences the grader listens for.
| You want to say | Textbook French | How it's said in Belgian French |
|---|---|---|
| Seventy / ninety | Soixante-dix / quatre-vingt-dix | Septante / nonante |
| Can you pass me the salt? | Peux-tu me passer le sel ? | Tu sais me passer le sel ? savoir where France says pouvoir |
| Here you go | Voilà. | S'il vous plaît. said while handing something over |
| See you later (today) | À plus tard. | À tantôt ! |
| Lunch | Le déjeuner | Le dîner breakfast is déjeuner, dinner is souper |
| It's pouring | Il pleut beaucoup. | Il drache. |
| Come here a sec | Viens ici, s'il te plaît. | Viens une fois ! softens a request — don't overdo it |
What changes when you set your variety to Belgian
- Numbers — septante and nonante for 70 and 90 (but quatre-vingts for 80) — and the grader marks soixante-dix and quatre-vingt-dix as French from France.
- Vocabulary — déjeuner, dîner, souper for breakfast, lunch and dinner; GSM for a mobile phone; kot for a student room; drache for a downpour; à tantôt for see you later.
- Grammar and habits — savoir for pouvoir ("Tu sais me passer le sel ?"), "une fois" to soften a request, "s'il vous plaît" when handing something over — small habits that make a sentence Belgian.
- Register — friendly, self-deprecating, fond of irony ("Non, peut-être !" means yes, obviously). Heavy Brussels dialect is flagged as very local.
How RateMyFrench trains your Belgian French ear
Graded against the local version
Translate today's sentence and get an instant 1–10 stamp. The grader is set to Belgian French, so correct-but-foreign phrasing loses points and you see exactly why.
See how a local would say it
Every result comes with the sentence the way someone from there would actually put it — Belgian French vocabulary, register and rhythm, not a neutral translation.
Sentences at your level
Set the difficulty on the card, from Beginner to Master. At the top end every sentence demands nuance — idiom, register, the subjunctive, tu versus vous — instead of ordering a coffee for the hundredth time.
A one-minute daily habit
There's one new sentence every day, and an optional morning email so you don't miss it. Sounding local is a hundred small corrections, not one big lesson.
Common questions
I'm already fluent. What does this add?
Fluent and local are different things. Plenty of fluent French is grammatically clean but placeless — every native speaker can tell. Today's sentence is graded against how it would be said in Belgian French, with the local phrasing shown next to yours, so you close that gap one sentence a day.
Is this Brussels French or all of French-speaking Belgium?
The grader targets general Belgian French — what you'd hear in Brussels, Liège or Namur and on RTBF. It avoids heavy Brussels dialect and Walloon, and it will tell you when a phrase is very informal.
Can I switch varieties later?
Yes — the variety is picked on the card and you can change it any time (Metropolitan, Québécois, Belgian, Swiss or West African). Your stamps stay with you, and every variety is free to play.
How much does it cost?
Today's challenge is free every day, in Belgian French or any other variety, no account needed, and so is your rating. The tutor's written correction is free on your first result and twice a week with a free account; the pass opens every correction, along with extra rounds and the archive of past challenges.
Learning a different variety?
Write French a Belgian would claim as their own
One sentence a day, held to the local standard. Today's takes under a minute.