Ask Lemmy

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.

For Spanish, I pretty much only use it with customers at work, and nice, elderly people. I guess I would use it if I were in a court for something in Spanish, but otherwise, I don't really use it at all.

Czech (and Slovak, mostly also Polish) use formal/informal you similar to German or French. (At least from my limited understanding of those.)

Formal: High schools, universities, work environment, courts, etc. You also use it when you're speaking with older people or when you want to show respect to person you're talking to.

Informal: Everywhere else. It is also used when you want to indirectly insult person where formal should be used.

Life hack: You can use informal absolutely everywhere when you're old (even when it'd be very disrespectful otherwise) and nobody gives a shit.

Greek: formal you is usually used with older people (but not family), teachers when you are a student or higher ups in general. Wherever I've worked we used the informal form but I don't know how common this is. Also retail workers typically use the formal form with customers so I do the same with them but many people do not. It seems to be slowly going away as a feature.

Spanish: I'd use the formal a bit less than in greek but it depends on location. In Spain it seems pretty rare but some central and south American countries use it much more.

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 Finnish, we have a formal 'you', but it's kind of archaic and I there aren't really any situations where it should be used. In general, you should avoid formal speech. It's rarely used and sticks out, so instead of being polite it might even make you sound sarcastic.

Coming from that culture, German 'sie' felt awkward at first. It feels pointless, but at the same time quirks like this also make cultures more interesting. I remember this meme video where a guy insults a cop while addressing him with 'du', but as the cop turns towards him, he quickly corrects it with 'sie', making the insult 100 times better. That just wouldn't work here.

In English, I use it all the time because 'thou' has been dropped.

In Spain it is normally used with elderly people (less and less, people get offended and think that "you call them old" or something like that when you use it) and in very formal situations, especially at work.

I speak Spanish, and use the formal pronoun when in any formal situation, eg. addressing a stranger.

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.

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.

Technically English has this too but it's not used outside of extremely formal situations. You = formal, Thou = informal.

Sanskrit, Marathi, and Hindi have formal and informal words to address someone. I think same is true for many other Indian languages.

Das geht Sie gar nichts an!