Contracting in Belgium -Through UK LTD. OR oversees trust?

[Fleetwood]

Depends.
There are some English-speaking sites.
Most ads for work in Brussels will ask for fluency in one of French or Dutch, with "passive understanding" of the other, but generally fluency en français with English is OK. Which is nice, because that's what I have.

Working in a cloggy-speaking area, you would be OK with English only as most Flemish are virtually fluent in English anyway, because no-one speaks Dutch. (16 million Dutch, 6 million Flemish, 500,000 in Surinam)

[Rantor]

Sorry to thread hijack - Just a quick question: When contracting in Belgium do I have to know how to speak the lingo?

It can depend on the site/role. Many roles in Brussels will take on English speakers with no other languages but I have used the last 16 months to learn French (with difficulty) as it does make things much easier.

Many agencies, consultancies and Belgian contractors reckon that living in Belgium is enough to get your foot in the door for some reason though I have never fully fathomed out the logic in that.

BTW - management company schemes in BE seems are the way to go for longer term stabilty but initial registration process can take a wee while with the quasi-stalinist state apparatus here.

[Lockhouse]

It can depend on the site/role. Many roles in Brussels will take on English speakers with no other languages but I have used the last 16 months to learn French (with difficulty) as it does make things much easier.

Thanks for the replies. How did you go about learning French whilst there? I can do decent tourist level French but that's about it at the moment.

[Fleetwood]

Ca ne suffira pas. Le français s'apprend sur l'oreiller.

[Lockhouse]

Ok, OK, I'm impressed....

[Fleetwood]

There's only one way to get good at French, and that's to get yourself a French-speaking bird/wife.

F in "It worked for me" mode

[Lockhouse]

Hmmmm

I don't think the current missus would go for that. At least she hasn't every other time the subject of threesomes has come up...

[Rantor]

I don't think the current missus would go for that. At least she hasn't every other time the subject of threesomes has come up...

Well I think I have done it the hard way as my anglo woman was not up for a string of francophone mistresses either.

My French is not fluent by any means but is improving rapidly. I take private french lessons (not the sort advertised in London phone boxes.) There are lots of options for learning here and they vary a lot in price but 25 euro per hour is reasonable and I am booking it as a training expense for tax purposes. I also study in my own time (rarely) and watch a bit of telly (news etc.) when I get the time.

I participate in about four hours of francophone meetings at work each week which I can use to measure my progress.

I have two problems: 1. Findng enough hours in the day to do the additional work 2. Nobody will willingly speak to me in French in the office as they all want to practice their English!

[BOBJ]

So how about Spain? Its not a place I've ever seen advertise for the kind of work I do, but through word of mouth I've got a chance to go to sunny Madrid. Reading some of the overseas guides on here it looks like it is easier to stay at home!

[GlobeWaker]

I have used a management company (Connexion) based in Luxemburg when I worked in Belgium three months.