And what language and region is it?
I’ve noticed my language teacher uses the informal you in one language and the formal one in the other.
I speak Spanish, and use the formal pronoun when in any formal situation, eg. addressing a stranger.
I live in Japan, and of course there are formal ways to say everything, but in formal and polite situations, people actually try to avoid saying ‘you’ (anata, 貴方) as much as possible. Because even that can feel too personal. I only see it in writing that addresses the reader indirectly, like in surveys.
If you do address or refer to them, you typically use their title/position (e.g., ‘sensei’ for doctors and teachers, ‘Mr. President’), or name and appropriate honorific (i.e. Tanaka-san).
P.S., a lot of what might’ve been archaically formal and polite ways to say ‘you’ have become ironically rude and/or condescending. Like, ‘KISAMA!’ (貴様), kimi (君) (sovereign/lord), onushi (お主) (lord).
Yes this! With my family and friends I don’t think I’ve ever used anata. It feels almost as confrontational to me as the actual formal ways
In Mexican Spanish, you would default to formal ‘you’ in most public interactions (although not all people do this). You would also use formal language when talking to a teacher or an authority.
- Formal ‘you’ (singular): usted
- Formal and informal ‘you’ (plural): ustedes
- Informal ‘you’ (singular): tú
Note that the informal and formal ‘you’ in plural are the same.
Fun fact: formal language in Spanish is more than just formal ‘you’.
E.g., if you’re working at a fancy shop and wanted to ask a customer “how may I help you?”, you would say “¿en qué le puedo ayudar?” (formal) instead of “¿en qué te puedo ayudar?” (informal). This question does not have “you”.
Isn’t te/le technically a conjugation of you though? You also have to conjugate the verb but at least the difference is just an ‘s’ that you can aspirate enough that it’s not clear if you’re going for tu or usted.
Formal and informal is not the same in plural.
“Ustedes” is formal, “vosotros” is informal. Although Mexicans (and many other south Americans) don’t use the informal version, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Some countries also say “vos” for singular. I don’t know if that replaces “tú” or “usted” though.
Any adults I don’t know, older adults in my family including my friends’ parents (many don’t, I’m just a bit old fashioned, lol) and employees at work? Goes for both French and Spanish. 👍
Back when I was at uni I had a fellow student from England who complained about the formal you in German. It took him to start learning Japanese to realize it’s really not that bad. In German it used to be that you say Sie to any adult-looking person until you both agreed to use du. At work this is a lot more relaxed now with entire companies stating everybody used du. Makes it much easier and nicer, in my opinion.
Formal you where I live is generally used for anyone older that you don’t know closely, in professional settings, or toward someone who has authority over you. Informal you is used for friends, close family, and some people around your age or younger.
Japanese has many ways to say “you”. It’s weird because indirectness can be more polite, so a formal way of saying “you” in context in a sentence might not include any words that would translate to “you” in the dictionary. And the subject is optional, just to make things extra fun.
The other question, about casual ways to say “you”, is easier to answer… It depends on the dialect and where you’re from in Japan.
Can you give examples, please?
Examples of what? Dropping the “you” in the sentence all together, or the casual ways to say “you”?
Regarding dropping it, it’s very common to drop the “I” or the “you” in regular speaking, as it’s assumed. Verb conjugation has a lot more power in Japanese, and you designate questions separately, which clears up most of the confusion. In English, “Go to the store” can either be a command or a statement (if you add “I will” at the front). In Japanese, this is explained in the conjugation of the verb. The subject thus becomes superfluous, and is dropped in everyday speech.
There’s a ton of different ways to say both “I” and “you” in Japanese, and can depend on gender, closeness, and situation. The four most common forms of “you” are to say the person’s name + さん (san), あなた (anata) which is rather generic but is odd to use too much especially if you know the person’s name, 君 (kimi) for people who know each other well (slightly masculine), and お前 (omae) which is so informal it can be crass, like calling a stranger “bro” in English.
Slovenian uses the formal one for adults you are not personally connected to. So like strangers or people in positions that demand somw respect. Definitely used for people like teachers, professors, your SO’s parents…
There is also a half formal way of addressing people that I kinda hate and is also completely grammatically incorrect and I don’t really know how to explain the way it works. It can only be used in past and future tense (because the present does not have a modifier for the verb). So the first part of the verb is taken from the formal (plural) form of the verb and the second part is taken from the informal (singular) form.
Russian here.
I use the formal “You” when talking to adults I don’t know well and in official conversations. Also, with superiors.
I use the informal “you” with friends and family, and with colleagues I know well. Informal “you” also communicates warmth, safety, a call to action, or authority, which is why it may be used when addressing children (particularly preteens), people in danger, or someone else you need to either influence or make feel safe, or both.
Of course there are millions of exceptions, and everyone keeps it slightly different. For this reason, it is common for people to have hard time figuring whether to address certain people by formal or informal “you”. Mistakenly using the formal option can be read as creating more distance, the informal - as invading the personal space. It’s an issue in spoken conversations, too, as these forms are actually two different words that are audibly different.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a comprehensive explanation when to use “Sie” over “du” in German. Very, VERY basically it’s this: if you’re close to the other person, it’s “du”, otherwise “Sie”. And then there’s a gazillion constellations where it’s not that easy and it seems learners keep finding more cases where what they learnt isn’t applicable. Most of these are intuitive to native German speakers, some are difficult to decide even for us.
Not that I think German is special in this. The correct way to address someone is less about language rules that you can memorise, more something you learn to intuit by getting to know the intricacies of the culture and its social mores.
Regarding your language teacher: what are those two languages? They may have different rules on how a teacher/student relationship works.
I’m in Austria speaking German and I’m learning French. Our rules for ‘du’ are very different from the ones in Germany though, and vary wildly regionally- from using ‘Sie’ for your drinking buddies to using ‘du’ for authority figures. From what I gather in this thread, the rules in Germany and France are similar?
if you’re close to the other person, it’s “du”, otherwise “Sie”.
Just sounds like a source of anxiety. If you meet someone for the first time and use the formal, at some point as you get to know them and become close you have to start using the informal? Does that get awkward sometimes if someone uses the wrong one, or uses it too early in a relationship or something? Is it a big deal to start using the informal? Goes for all languages. I’ve thought about that with Japanese too where it really is a big deal
General rule of thumb that aligns well with what you do in English: “Sie” goes with last names, “du” goes with first names.
There are very rare exceptions, for example sports reporters tend to address some athletes with “Sie” and first name for reasons that nobody can explain. Those are not very relevant in everyday conversation, especially not if German is not your first language.
Is it a big deal to start using the informal?
It used to be a cliché that you would call coworkers by their last name and “Sie” until that one fateful office Christmas party where your boss gets drunk and asks you to call him Fritz and “du”.
These days, things are a lot more relaxed. Many companies are adopting a rule that all employees should address each other as “du”, including upper management.
Funny thing is, in Dutch, I feel it is way more common that people correct you for using a formal form than the other way around.
In like a “oh please, sir was my father, call me Dave” kind of way? Or a “hey man this really isn’t appropriate in this situation” kind of way?
Yeah no, more like the former.
Never. Norwegian, by the way.
Similar to German, the plural can be used as a formal version of singular (Du = Du, Sie = De).
But I’ve never used it outside of cases such as acting obnoxiously formal with friends. And I don’t think anyone else does either. Hundred years ago, maybe. Not today.
In French/France I use the formal vous when talking to strangers or customers. Here people generally switch pretty quickly to the informal tu when they get to know each other (at my first day at work with my colleagues and boss). But I’m quite an oddball since I use the formal address even for kids, which no one does. Also my neighbor was a bit annoyed at me for continuing to say vous to her after having met her one month ago. It can make people feel old.
I always refer to someone by “vous” until I ask permission to “tutoyer”, unless they start referring to me with “tu”. It’s tricky to figure out when is the right moment to switch unless someone decides to switch for you. I much prefer English because of this.
Vousvouy-ing kids makes me feel whimsical, like Mary Poppins, so of course I do it too at times. 😅
Living in Quebec this is my own private little social anxiety nightmare when meeting new people. You want to talk about pronouns? This is the real pronouns issue. Do I go with tu and seem overly familiar? Do I go with vous and seem standoffish? Does it depend on age? Degrees of separation? Station in life? Nnnnnnnnnngggggghhhh
Couldn’t you just suggest “On se tutoie?”?
This makes sense at first glance but I have never heard anyone do this ever, and it seems like it might make the situation feel even more awkward.
How about in a uni class? My teacher uses ‘vous’ and ‘du’. That’s what prompted the question!
Maybe your teacher uses vous not as a formal address to one student but rather to speak to the whole class? Or he/she respects some students more than others and uses vous to talk to them, in spite of the age difference.
The former is what I used to think, but I’ve been noticing she does it in one-on-one conversation as well, and as far as I can tell, that’s the case for everyone. Also, in written assignments, in the beginning, it would be, for example, ‘schreibe […]’ and is now ‘escrivez […]’
It’s also a uni class, so not all students are younger than the teacher.
Dutch is now my main language. I rarely, almost never, use the formal “U” or “Uw”. It’s an archaic thing.
It’s notice it’s still in use in government communication. I also notice it in (older) literature.
I choose to believe UwU is extra formal
I’m also Dutch and I still occasionally use it when I want to be polite to an older person I do not know very well, or to someone who is in a position where I want to show a certain form of “respect” (higher social standing?)
That is probably also why the government uses U in its communication. It is proper to be seen as being respectful to your citizens. And saying “jij” after “u” is less likely to offend anyone than saying “u” after “jij”
The rules are a bit vague when you are supposed to use it, and most people will go “zeg maar jij hoor” (you can say [informal] you) after you start with “u” (formal you)
In my experience many small businesses use it in written communication. Even if you just had an informal phone conversation with them, they will follow up with a formal email. GPs do it too in online written consults. I find it slightly annoying, because it forces me to consider doing the same, which I rarely do otherwise.
Sometimes younger people (strangers) address me in the formal form, even though I’m in my 30s.
Big companies usually use the informal form in their communication.
Big companies using the informal you in formal communication can be seen as a way to try to make themselves feel smaller, more approachable, more person-like than they actually are.
I’m not saying that is necessarily the reason behind it, but formal or informal you do invoke different feelings and associations when they are used.
I definitely agree about the big companies. They have style guides for this and it’s definitely about perception. However, the formal you sounds very stiff and official to me coming from people who are very friendly and informal on the phone and who are in many cases older than me. At the same time I realize that some of their clients might appreciate the formal form and they’re just using it by default instead of overthinking it.
In Portuguese we use the formal “você” in a similar way to the French “vous”- for people you just met, people who are older, customers, etc. In some families (usually very traditional or conservative families) children will address parents and other elders by “você”. Then there’s another level where you address someone by their name or their title, usually reserved for people of a “higher rank” or a very formal setting, like “O senhor/a senhora conhece o Lemmy?”, or “O João gosta de memes?”
I would think this needs the regional classification. There are big chunks of Brazil where tu may as well not exist as a pronoun. I also wouldn’t necessarily say that addressing someone by their name would be universally taken as a sign of respect. Plenty of people will just use names like that in informal speech, like “Você não vai acreditar o que falou o João ontem.”
When I lived in São Paulo, “você” was pretty much it. The only people who used “tu” were tourists.
However, using the “tu” form of verbs with friends, family, et al, was common. Just almost nobody used the actual pronoun.
Yeah, and you get all sorts of weird pronoun use in Brazil, anyway, once you branch off from formal speech. I’ve heard people using tu with the você conjugations, people trying to act like gangsters using nós instead of a gente, Brazil is a weird place. On the plus side, it makes it a bit easier for non-natives, since you can mess up most things in terms of pronunciation and conjugations, and still find someone that will go “Ai, meu deus, mas você fala igual às pessoas da minha cidade.”
