Mathilde speaking french

[MissSaga]

I've never heard Princess Mathilde speaking french.
Do anyone have some videos of her speaking french, in a speach, or something similar ?

[lilytornado]

deredactie.be - "Dames en heren, voor u staat een trotse vader"

Third video from the top: "Eléonore is het 4e kind..etc" It is a dutch video but Mathilde talks to Elisabeth in French in the middle of the video when Gabriel was a baby. I think her voice sounds very sweet there.

deredactie.be - Prinses Eléonore voorgesteld aan publiek
On this video (the one on the top) you can hear her speaking in French at one point about the condition of her father.

RTL Info Ã* L'infini - La princesse Eléonore a quitté la maternité avec ses parents cet après-midi.

During the presentation of Eléonore.

[Marchesina]

On the contrary i've heard her speaking dutch only few times, but I don't speak it so I can't judge.
To dutch-speaking people here:what do you think about it, how does she speak Dutch?

[stephanievl]

Mathilde gave an intervieuw to the Belgian journalist Martine Tange about language/reading in the Magazine Trouw.

Here you can read the article (only Dutch).

Some passages:

Mathilde learned to speak Dutch when she was 12 years old. The most difficult where the sentence constructions, the pronunciation of the clangs and the accents.

She knows she has a French accent but she tried to improve herself every day. She reads Dutch newspapers, listens to Dutch radio, television and speaks Dutch with her advisor, assistents and friends.

At home she speaks mostly French with her childern but the childern go to a Dutch speaking school, when they make there home work it is in Dutch and they think in Dutch. The childern among each other speak French and Dutch. What she now often hears with the young childern is that they speak the both languages in one sentence (because they don't know some words in French) and that is what Mathilde tries to avoid.

She find it very important to read stories to the childern. The childern don't go to bed without a story. She also is 'reading mother' at the school of the childern. She loves to do that but she never reads to her own childern at school.

Elisabeth loves to read fantasy books, Gabriël loves Greek mythology for childern, Emmanuel does not have any favorites for the moment and Eleonore follows het sister and brothers.

Mathilde often speaks to princess Laurentien of the Netherlands about language. Laurentien gave Mathilde a copy of her book for blind childern. Both princesses share a passion for reading.

Mathilde herself loves to read in different languages. Especially during long flights, when she does not has the childern around her. She listens to other people when making her choises. She is very interested in literature, nowedays especially childerns literature due to the childern's ages.

Prince Philippe also loves to ready, more then Mathilde. Especially biographies, economic books and books from the family library.

[Lady Felicity M]

Great little article, is there any way you could post the who interview here

[Esmerelda]

I copy and pasted the text into Google translate, although there were some mistranslations. There should be a 'text select' tool when you open the pdf.

I'm really impressed that Elisabeth is trilingual. If she can read the Enid Blyton books in English, she's completely up to standard for her age.

[dbarn67]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1pmBFPlIDU

Princes de Belgique from a couple of years ago. You can hear the children speak french as well.

[cdm]

I'm a bit disappointed, it would have been nice if Mathilde kept taking lessons to try to get rid of her french accent when she speaks Dutch.
It will probably never go away as she says, but I think it can be improved.

[Esmerelda]

Originally Posted by cdm

I'm a bit disappointed, it would have been nice if Mathilde kept taking lessons to try to get rid of her french accent when she speaks Dutch.
It will probably never go away as she says, but I think it can be improved.

I think if you start learning a language after the age of 10 or so, you're going to have an accent. It should get better the more you use it but there comes a certain point when it's as good as it can get, which may be different for different people-some people are just really good at languages. Is her French accent really strong? I can't tell.

Here's a clip from her wedding where she speaks both French and Dutch
http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuw...nland/1.646013

[stephanievl]

Originally Posted by cdm

I'm a bit disappointed, it would have been nice if Mathilde kept taking lessons to try to get rid of her french accent when she speaks Dutch.
It will probably never go away as she says, but I think it can be improved.

I am sure that she is still takeing lessons. Probabelly a private teacher.

Originally Posted by Esmerelda

Is her French accent really strong? I can't tell.

You can definattely hear that Dutch it not her mother language because she keeps having the French 'R'. But her accent isn't that strong.

A news clip about the article with some images of her speaking Dutch
Videozone

[reginalix]

Princess Mathilde has no pleasant nor elegant voice but it’s soft. But for French speakers, when we hear her except during small speeches and ITW, her voice can shrill.

It’s a little bit sad that Belgian born princess and whose paternal family is of Flemish minor nobility (the parents of Mathilde were never based on Flemish region and their children didn’t frequented Flemish cursus) still looks for her words, keeps an accent when she speaks one of the national languages (the language of 60 % of the population). Hardly better than Queen Paola who is foreign.
But finally Princess Mathilde was never educated to be a queen nor to become high leader or Belgian senior official.

[cdm]

[QUOTE=stephanievl;1183005]I am sure that she is still takeing lessons. Probabelly a private teacher.

I think she would have told that in this interview if she was, particularly because the interview is about learning Dutch.
Her accent is very strong.
Same in English, I remember a TV show where they were joking that she was auditioning for 'Allo Allo' when she was speeching in English

[rob2008]

I suppose some will say that Mathilde will need to learn Dutch in order to speak to the servants. German is an official Belgian language so hopefully the whole Royal family are proficient in this language. One of the real values and attractions of Belgian culture is its diversity. Dutch with a French accent will be intriguing.

[stephanievl]

Originally Posted by cdm

I think she would have told that in this interview if she was, particularly because the interview is about learning Dutch.
Her accent is very strong.
Same in English, I remember a TV show where they were joking that she was auditioning for 'Allo Allo' when she was speeching in English

The interviewer told the press that she nicely talked around that questions. It is know that the royal family does not like to speak how many and for what subjects that they have private teachers. They surely are there but they don't talk about them.

I don't think that her accent is very strong. I am Dutch speakung myself and she surely has the French 'R' when she is speaking but her Dutch is much better than some politicians.

The most important thing about the intervieuw I find is that the next generation, it educated in Dutch, has many Dutch friends/after school activites and as Mathilde says herself think in Dutch. Which means that that generation will be the first to be perfect billingual.

[Saschana]

Originally Posted by rob2008

German is an official Belgian language so hopefully the whole Royal family are proficient in this language.

So far I've only heard the King speaking German and to be honest it wasn't very good. It was his Christmas speech that is aired in all the different languages and obviously it was written before and he just had to read it out loud but sometimes it sounded a bit like he doesn't actually know German because he pronounced most of the words with a heavy French accent ecxept for the numbers which he pronounced with a Dutch accent.

[greenways]

Matitlde strikes me as a very smart , switched on women. She has great skin and hair - quite beautiful IMO.