Sir EW

Belgian communitarian problems are also retrievable in FM2008.

People around the world call or mail me:

“Is it true? Will Belgium split?”

No, it will not. But Walloons and Flemish people have some different mind sets.

“Sure, but what is all this, having to do with FM ?”, I hear you think moaning.

Well, I discovered something typical for Belgium….

As you probably know, in Belgium there are three language regions:

The biggest part (almost 60%) is located in Flanders and the people talk Dutch in this region.
About 40% is located in French spoken Wallonia and a very small region is talking German.

That’s the reality, but not in FM.

When you are at a Flemish team and you invite foreign players they’ll start speaking the native language. In real life it would be Dutch, in FM it’s French !!!

Why?

Well, the researchers for Belgium are:

•Fabrice Leclercq
•Fabian Vangeel
•Johnny Volt

With some research I discovered that:

Fabrice who’s the head researcher for Belgium is Walloon and thus his mother tongue is French.

And that’s why in FM, all foreigners of all Belgian teams start to speak French after a while.

As a nice extra I discovered that he’s a fan for Charleroi. Now we start to understand why Charleroi and its players are overrated in the game.

I also found it strange that the internet doesn’t know any Johnny Volt correlated with Football Manager…

DMaster2

Ohoh interesting... SI have to fix this... you know if this happen for Cipro and Switzerland also?

Sir EW

I don't know for Switzerland.

I'm Belgian and I like to manage Antwerp, a Flemish team.

After a while, I noticed that everyone was on French classes, instead of Dutch ones...

One could say, big deal! But it is lowering the reality detail and also it is influencing my style of gaming.

Many Belgian managers will try to attract players from the Netherlands. They are obviously talking Dutch.

In real life you don't have any language problems when you attract a Dutch player to a Flemish team.

But you do in FM!

Dutch players have to learn French before they are fully integrated. And this one is influence their playing on the field...

Giziar

I'm not sure if SI is able to set the language based on cities of birth/establishment of football clubs and/or regions.

Would be an ownage addition to FM if it would be possible.

Not only for the big countries where it's obvious that players are learning the "wrong" language (Belgium & Switzerland) but also for the Swedish speaking part of Finland, the German speaking part of Italy and so on.

Sir EW

I’m wondering if it is not influencing signing players (or training staff) as well.

Dutch players know already Dutch. If they would go to a Flemish team, they know there are no language problems to be expected.

In FM they ‘think’ they have to learn French to get adapted, which could influence their decision signing for a Flemish team.

And I have some evidence for that one…

In FM2007 it happened one single time that a player didn’t want to come to my club due he was expecting problems on cultural and language issues…

Sir EW

It is possible.

If I have a look in the FM2008 database, the Antwerp team is speaking Dutch.
However, FM isn’t using this language used in the database…

If I look to the country settings for Belgium, 57% is speaking Dutch, 42% is speaking Walloon.

The only think I can think about is, that the French language is selected as first.

I’ll change the database settings (put Flemish on the first line) and check it out, I’ll return feedback when I know more.

Sir EW

EDIT:

"The only think I can think about is, that the French language is selected as first."

should be

The only thing I can think about is, that the French language is selected as first.

Sir EW

Are other people suffering from similar problems in other multi-language countries?

aenariel

Sir EW I bet it is a problem with the way the game works itself (more than a research problem). Players always adapt to the "first" language of a country (even if the percentages are evenly split between different languages) and ignores totally city-specific languages.

CoachFlu

The languages in Belgium are indeed a problem.

I'm managing Verbroedering Meldert (near Aalst) - in the Flemish part of Belgium.
Foreign players who join the club don't learn Dutch, they learn only French (if needed).

I don't think this is a conscious communotarian conspiracy from the researchers though. Probably just a little bug, a wrong box ticked in the data-thingamajig, or something.

Because, I believe in FM07 players at Belgian clubs learned both French and Dutch, whenever applicable. That may not be 100% realistic, but it's a good solution.

Also, the game does seem to recognize Meldert as a Flemish club. New youth players who get generated in the Meldert U19 team speak only Dutch at first (and then they start learning French).

Anyway, perhaps it's a good idea to ask this in the Belgium topic in the data forum?