[WirelessGigabit]

In Flanders, Belgium there is a slow adoption of T.

But what is weird is that the V is used in BOTH contexts. The T is used in the Netherlands but slowly more and more people in Flanders are adopting the T version in written language.

And it irks me. Companies sending you a letter addressing you with the T version, like we're friends.

I don't want to be addressed by V for reasons of respect. I don't want to be addressed with T for reasons of not wanting to be infantilized.

[toolslive]

Education has been trying to kill the "ge/gij" form for decades by ignoring its existence. In Flanders, they are not really succeeding. Everybody still uses it in spoken form. However, the number of people knowing how to conjugate it properly in written form is decreasing. "Gij hadt" fe, is correct but rarely encountered .

[WirelessGigabit]

"Gij loopt". Base + t. That's how I learned it.

Do you know why education is trying to do this? I find that as it infiltrates business communication that it encourages a language that sounds like we're friends. We're not. I'm a person. You're a company who is overcharging me for basic things like internet. No need for informal cosy language.

[toolslive]

(now try the past tense, there's plenty of weird stuff with strong verbs "zijn" becomes "Gij waart"). To answer the question: everything language related is dominated by the Dutch. Take fe dictionaries. Van Dale dominates the market and has a habit of annotating everything that's not considered "proper" Dutch as "Belg.Nl." I have a feeling Flemish Dutch and Dutch Dutch were more one language in the 1970s than now. They're drifting apart.

[elric]

Just to add to this:

The T form (jij/je) sounds infantile in Flemish because it is infantile. The real T form in Flemish is gij/ge. But it's somewhat archaic and some people look down on it, so it's rarely used in written conversation. In many cases, the jij/je-form is used when talking to children or used by children. Once they grow up a bit, they tend to use the gij/ge form for informal conversation, and jij/je for slightly more polite conversation.

It's a bit different in the Netherlands, where the archaic forms are more rare outside of Brabant, and where reality more closely matches the textbook T-forms.

Companies addressing me using the infantile form doesn't bother me. What I find much more annoying is companies trying to be cutesy, with random slang thrown in their communications It always gives me "How do you do, fellow kids"-vibes.

I only very rarely encounter anyone talking in the V-forms. It's more common in the written form.

Being a bit of a contrarian, I refuse to write in the jij/je T-form, and consistently stick to the archaic gij/ge.

TL;DR: Flemish has 2 T-forms and one V-form, but the newer T-form is sometimes a V-form. Languages are fun.

[WirelessGigabit]

First of all, thanks for reminding me about ge/gij. I am born in Flanders, raised in Flemish, and lived there for 28 years and I forgot about that.

When I was growing up people did not address me with je/jij. My mom was a teacher. Ge/gij all the time.

And if you want to be polite you would switch to u/u.

And I get the same vibes as you do. But since ge/gij is not suitable for formal communication I insist on using u/u. This also increases the barrier to use any kind of infantile cosy language.

'Wees gerust' just irks me.