# rijwiel en fiets



## Hitchhiker

When I stayed in Belgium I never heard the word "rijwiel" except to see it in dictionaries. I recently saw photo's of some signs in the Netherlands and on the signs they used "rijwielen" for do not place bicycles against shop window and no bicycles inside the church. In Belgium "fiets" seems very popular for both speaking and signs. In Belgium I think these signs would use "fietsen'. Do people ever use "rijwiel" when speaking or is it a bit formal and used mostly for signs? In English we also have a few different words for bicycle.

I do remember in Antwerps dialect the French word "velo" is used but is said like "vlo or vloo" Like English "flow". In Gents dialect they would say "velootje".


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## Sauv

It is mostly used for signs. Perhaps that some elder people still use it, but it's absolutely not common. We say ''fiets'' too. ''Vélo'' is French indeed, in the Netherlands we don't use something like that.


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## Hitchhiker

Thanks. Rijwiel struck me as a bit odd. I thought it was funny to have sign to say bicycles not allowed inside the church. I think the photo was from a university city. I think it from Delft but it might have been Leiden. If it's anything like Ghent, bicycles get stolen all the time, so I guess some people might try to bring them inside.


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## Grytolle

Hitchhiker said:


> I do remember in Antwerps dialect the French word "velo" is used but is said like "vlo or vloo" Like English "flow". In Gents dialect they would say "velootje".


Except that it would be pronounced with a v  http://www.antwerps.be/woord/599

In pure Gents dialect, I think it would be velo + se (perhaps with a t or something in between - I don't know enough about it to form it correctly)... You're very probably right about that being replaced by the more standard dutch/flemish -tje^^


My guess is that if "rijwiel" was used a lot for a while in Flanders, it was for the same reason as for example "reeds" is used - they learned it from the written language where "rijwiel" sometimes was used


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## Hitchhiker

Grytolle said:


> Except that it would be pronounced with a v  http://www.antwerps.be/woord/599
> 
> In pure Gents dialect, I think it would be velo + se (perhaps with a t or something in between - I don't know enough about it to form it correctly)... You're very probably right about that being replaced by the more standard dutch/flemish -tje^^
> 
> 
> My guess is that if "rijwiel" was used a lot for a while in Flanders, it was for the same reason as for example "reeds" is used - they learned it from the written language where "rijwiel" sometimes was used



Yes normally V in Flemish is closer to English V than in the Netherlands but VL and VR are normally pronounced as FL and FR. In Flemish the W is a pure English W with no V sound. This makes spelling to somebody from the Netherlands difficult. the letter V is normally /ve/ vee, and W is /we/ wee, but a Belgian will say the V with more English V sound than F sound and some Belgians call the V /vi/ vie, to make the difference from W.


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## Joannes

Ik denk dat sommige winkels *rijwielen* zetten omdat ze ook bromfietsen en scooters verkopen.. Dat zijn ook rijwielen.


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## Hitchhiker

Joannes said:


> Ik denk dat sommige winkels *rijwielen* zetten omdat ze ook bromfietsen en scooters verkopen.. Dat zijn ook rijwielen.



Oh, I see . thanks.


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## Frank06

*Hoi,

Ik heb de berichten in verband met de uitspraak van <v> en <w> verwijderd.
Het is een beetje te off topic en we hebben al minstens twee discussies over dit onderwerp:
Dutch 'V' and Dutch "w", confusion
Dutch: difference between "w" and "v"

Groetjes,

Frank
Moderator DF
*


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