German politeness

From UniLang Wiki

There are three second person pronouns in German:

• informal singular: du (2nd person singular)
• informal plural: ihr (2nd person plural)
• polite singular/plural: Sie (gramatically 3rd person plural)

The polite pronouns are always capitalized (except sich), the informal ones are always written in lower case.
In the old spelling, however, the informal 2nd person pronouns were capitalized in personal letters.

The informal second person form is used in the following cases:

• when talking to children (i.e. persons under the age of 16)
• when talking to relatives or friends (and of course your lover / husband / wife / boy-friend / girl-friend etc. )
• when you're a student talking to other students (even if you're an undergraduate talking to a PhD student you don't know)
• when talking to colleagues if the working atmosphere in your company is "relaxed"
• if you're a hip journalist interviewing showbiz stars
• often among members of a club, e.g. (sports) (see also below)

Thus the formal second person form is used in all other cases:

• when talking to adult strangers
• when talking to superiors (like your boss or your teacher) unless s/he prefers the casual tone
• when talking to colleagues if the working atmosphere in your company is more "traditional"

Age difference is irrelevant. If you're 20 and the person you talk to is 50, you might be allowed to use the informal 2nd person. And if you're 50 and the person you talk to is 20, you might have to use the formal 2nd person.
In any case, it's reciprocal (except between children and adults). If a person uses the formal (or informal) 2nd person to you, you should do the same with him/her, unless one of you is under 18.

And there's another rule of thumb that might be different from other countries: You call a person by her/his first name if you talk to her/him in the informal second person, and you use the last name (with the words "Herr", "Frau" or a title like "Doktor") if you would use the formal second person.
Sometimes people call each other by their last name (without "Herr" or so), although they use the informal second person ("Du Müller, bring mir auch ein Bier mit!"). That's not a matter of respect, it might just be because that person's first name is very common...

Du is frequently used among members in clubs (e.g. sports), where a wide range of ages mix (at least in nice clubs). As a newcomer you should also use Sie initially, as with any strangers. But people will normally quickly say their christian name and say it is OK to use "Du".

An older person in this case might say:

Du kannst mich ruhig duzen. - You may use "Du" with me.

This might cause some strange situations, for example if you are still young and in the same club as your teacher. As long as you are under 16 you will probably still use "Sie" with people who are obviously senior, and young and adult players don't tend to mix so much. But between 16 and 18 it is a kind of grey zone where it also depends a lot on the personalities involved. In school however, you would definitely have to use Sie again.

Another situations is among collegues in a company that might use the christian name at the club, but have to use their surname at the company, because that is how everybody addresses each other.

There is also a page on writing a letter in German, which deals with formal and informal types of greetings and farewells.

To see how other languages deal with issue have a look at this article about politeness in language.

languages >> German >> German issues