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How adressing to people works in lang-s | ||
Tags: Polite/Informal Forms | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Siberiano Tetraglot Senior Member Russian Federation one-giant-leap.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6492 days ago 465 posts - 696 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English, ItalianC1, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Serbian | Message 1 of 27 17 November 2014 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'd like to ask other native speakers or learners to explain how addressing works in
different languages. Formal vs informal, high status vs negliging, respective vs diminutive, and neutral. This is one of the key skills in language, yet I never saw a comprehensive explanation even for English. Let me start with Russian, and add observations of Italian, as I've been there and was addressed in ways very curious for me. Russian name has 3 parts: name, father's name and family name. Name has many forms, about 10-20 each, but in general each form carries one of 5 meanings. Father's name is not middle name like in English. It applies to foreigners only if they get citizenship, but not required otherwise. (Well, some web forms require it anyway, so it's a place for improvvisation. Some use middle name, some use real father's name, like Эрдэмович, Чимидович, etc.) Family name works like in English, except that if it terminates with a relation suffix (-ov, -in, -ski, -tski) it declines. (Sara Pálina, Carolina Wozniacka. Except Sergey Brin is not declined, -in is part of root here.) I found 12 ways you can address to someone in Russian using names. Name only in different forms: 1. neutral (Иван Iván) Became very widely used last 20 years. Where you see first + father's name in Soviet movies used between equal people, today 90% chance that only a name + plural "you" (sign of formality) will be used, or sometimes even singular "you" (ты "thou") as less formal - this is widespread especially in business which tries to lower the formal barrier and open internal communication. 2. short first name, informal in friendly relationships (Вáня Ványa) 3. very informal form, friends or at school, a bit lower status (Ванёк Vanyók) 4. very informal, respective form (Ванó Vanó) 5. diminuitive form (short first name + suffix) (Вáнечка Vánechka). 6. Family name only. Is used in very formal situations, otherwise gives low status, you sound like a cop. (Иванóв Ivanóv) 7. Mr + family name. Formal and respective, unease in speech, used mostly in written speech or formal meetings. (Господин Иванóв Mr. Ivanov) 8. Comrade + family name. It has never been neutral actually, even in USSR, and now sounds outdated. It's still used in army as neutral, and otherwise it's either low status or joking. (Товарищ Иванов Comrade Ivanov) Curiously, it was not neutral because when you call someone your friend (comrade) you assign yourself too much friendship and ask too much a favor. 9. First name + Father's name. Formal or implies higher age and respect. (You still can get it in a reverse meaning if used out of place, like cops talked to me using F+F, not meaning they have much respect to me.) Ивáн Ивáнович. Longer name means more respect because it takes you more work and memory to say this, thus means you care more. Shorter addressing means less signs of formality. 10. Father's name only. When you're 40 or older, younger may address to you like pt. 9, so in very friendly informal situation between very friendly people of same age you can use only father's name. Ивáныч Ivanych. 11. First name + Family name. Used to introduce someone in public or address in such situation when you feel name only would still be too informal, but don't know father's name. 12. First + Father + Family name. Introduce someone or address when there are omonym persons in the audience. If you don't know the name, a neutral way is to call age+gender. Foreigners are shocked, but this is 100% appropriate. Only those who like to do philosophic excercises doubt these words. So, here you go: мужчина (mr), дед(ушка), отец (father, respective way to address an old man), женщина (madam), бабушка (old lady, but she has to be really old), девушка (miss), молодой человек (young man), мальчик (boy), девочка (girl). They're 100% neutral, except that people might disagree with you on who they are on the scale. You can also start talking with "excuse me" and ask their name then. Calling by profession is irrespective except some situations like in a bus, when you need to pass the message as soon as possible. Italian. The biggest difference, still sounding weird to me, is that calling by family name is absolutely ok. Secondly, "signore" means nothing like just "man". As I read in some book, calling a judge "signore" meant disrespect and neglecting any of his significance, and calling him "judiche + last name" meant recognizing his role and name. I was called "fotógrafo" in the street, because I carried a big camera. At first I thought this was irrespective, but remembered it was another country and changed my mind. Please post your systemations of addressing. Edited by Siberiano on 18 November 2014 at 12:13pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 27 18 November 2014 at 10:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting!
Sweden Swedish people generally have one or several given names and one surname. Some people have a middle name, though this is rare. Preferred given name This is how everyone knows you. It's how you'll be introduced to everyone. It's how you'll introduce yourself. If it isn't a professional or formal situation you probably will never use your surname. If it weren't for Facebook sleuthing amongst mutual friends' friends lists you'd probably never would learn the surname of new acquaintances. Preferred given name + surname This is how you introduce yourself or someone else in a formal (e.g. business) setting, or yourself in a less formal one (even a wedding counts as less formal) if you for some reason want to highlight your relation to someone your interlocutor already knows (i.e. saying "I'm related to so-and-so" or "married" without using those words). Surname only You're either writing a review and referring to the author/director/etc. for a second or third time, or you're talking to a friend whom you've taken to calling by his/her surname. This is more common in "team"-like situations. It's a bit reminiscent of being in the army or playing on a football team, so it also has somewhat macho/male overtones (that said, I'm a woman who growing up was called by some mainly by my maiden name). Preferred given name + other given names + surname A sign of familiarity, because otherwise the speaker wouldn't know all of your given names. Most likely, you're in trouble! Preferred given name + other given names + (middle name) + surname The government wants something. No one who didn't just pull your name out of the official registry will ever use your full name. Except maybe the priest at your wedding. If you don't know someone's name... ...you just don't use it. You don't call someone by a title. At most you might call a child "lilla vän" (little friend) or something of that ilk. If you call someone "gamle man" (old man) though, even in a gentle and friendly way, you probably know him well. Likewise "fru" (mrs) or "fröken" (miss) are mostly used a bit ironically amongst friends or family members. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 3 of 27 18 November 2014 at 11:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the interesting explanation about Russian ways of addressing people. Very useful.
In Norway you address practically everyone with their first name only. The only exception I can think of is members of the royal family, so to the King you would normally address him in third person as "Kongen". In writing (like a letter or an e-mail) you will use only the first name if you already know the person, with a formula like "Hei Petter" (Hello Peter) or "Kjære Petter" (Dear Peter) - the last one will normally be reserved for family and friends or other people you have a personal relationship to. You would do this even in an exchange related to work or similar, so not only personal correspondence. If you write to someone you have not yet met, e.g. in a job application you might be slightly more formal and use a job title followed by first name and surname: "Til underdirektør Petter Hansen (To Deputy Director Peter Hansen). Using titles like Mr. and Mrs/Ms. would only happen in very formal correspondence, and then you could write something like "Hr. Peter Hansen, Underdirektør i Company X." You won't see that very often though. You might still meet people of "a certain age" who prefer to be more formal, especially if they have an "important" job. I know a diplomat close to retirement who would be offended if you write to him and forget to address him as "Ambassador XX". As in Sweden, if you don't know the name, you just don't use any particular word of addressing the person. To say something like "Unnskyld, unge mann..." (Excuse me, young man...) would either come from someone much older than you or it would be meant ironically. Here in France it is much more complex, and things are in a state of flux, but from my own experience, in most work places colleagues address each other by the first name only. As regards the polite "vous" vs. the familiar "tu", there is a lot of variation and will often depend on indivicual preferences. Saying "tu" to colleagues is becoming more and more normal, although you always start from the outset with "vous", and then one of you, normally the most senior in age or rank, will propose to use "tu". My previous director insisted on everyone of a lower rank saying "vous" to her, and she would also use "vous" with everyone except those of the same rank as her. My current boss wants everyone to say "tu" and will use "tu" with everyone he works with (but not e.g. with external consultants who come in to do work for us, there he will keep the polite form). In short, it is all rather confusing, but one basic rule applies: When you meet someone for the first time, or when you address strangers like shop attendants, waiters etc., you always use the polite form, preferrably followed by "Monseiur" or "Madame". 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 27 18 November 2014 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
My favorite quote on the subject comes from C.S. Lewis's Four Loves:
This explains so many of the contradictions of formality and address: You can offend people either by claiming too close or too distant a relationship. I'm also quite fond of this article from Topito, which explains various situations in which the informal tu may be used without asking. It contains a delightful expression which I've seen elsewhere, used for explaining that a relationship isn't close enough to use tu:
I have this mental image of a joint pig-raising project, which certainly seems enough reason to use tu. And of course, there's one form of address well known in the United States, and perhaps in other Anglophone countries: The full given name, used by parents when a child is in major trouble. "John Richard Smith, you get in here right now!" 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 5 of 27 18 November 2014 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The manners of Netherlands are similar to those of the Scandinavian countries, except
there are situations here where the formal "u" is still preferred (in formal contexts especially). However it's gradually falling more and more out of use and I never even addressed my professors or instructors at university using this (I once started and was explicitly told not to). In the Netherlands, address works a bit more strangely than in the Scandinavian countries because many people here have loads of given names, especially if you come from a Catholic background. Usually people have multiple names, most of them very long, and the way to address them is using the "roepnaam" (calling name, or name of address). Sometimes this coincides with the first name, sometimes it doesn't. If the person is from a religious background or somewhat older it is usually a variant of the full name (i.e. Petrus becoming Peter or Piet). Some calling names are even shortened (Peter --> Peet, not unlike Russian address forms). In my case, because I wasn't raised religiously, and because my given name consists of one syllable, it's both my first name and name of address (I could choose to use the second one, but people are used to this one). Unfortunately it's rare so there's no nice diminutives people can use on it, I'm always called the same thing. If you use "u", you should address someone as "meneer/mevrouw + last name". Mevrouw doesn't cover marital status but always works. However, there are very few people I use u with unless in formal settings or official business. Also, I have a friend who addresses me in Russian almost exclusively as "Crane bird", and in Chinese that's even my last name. Edited by tarvos on 18 November 2014 at 1:10pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4637 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 6 of 27 19 November 2014 at 2:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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I used to work with a French-Australian who swore if he ever went back to France he would
use 'tu' with everyone he met. He said he'd come to hate formalities, having lived in Australia for so long. Would it really be workable though? I bet he'd get some pretty negative reactions, especially from older folks. I'm surprised how similar Australia is to Sweden and Norway. In fact, exactly the same except that we can call someone whose name we don't know "mate" or a similar word (much more common when speaking to men than women, there just aren't any good casual words for women). Edited by AlexTG on 19 November 2014 at 2:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 7 of 27 19 November 2014 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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In Hong Kong you'd use the Chinese for Mr. 先生 and pronounce it (sin1 saang1).
For Mrs. 太太 (taai3 taai3*2) and Miss. 小姐 (siu2 ze2) For a small child 小朋友 (siu2 pang4 jau5) literally a "small friend". To be more exact, you can put in a person's last name in the beginning (never address people by first name unless it is a close friend or a younger relative). Mr. Chan would be (can4 sin1 saang1). The Mandarin is the same as Cantonese except for the pronunciation. For Mr. (xiānsheng). For Mrs. (tàitai) and Miss. (xiǎojie) A small child (xiǎopéngyǒu) In Singapore & Malaysia, the Chinese community address people as Uncle & Auntie. The Chinese equivalent would be 伯伯 bóbo & 阿姨 (āyí) even when people have no family relations to you. In Japan it's simpler. You can address anybody you know with -san after their name to show respect such as Aiko- san. To be more respectful, you go by the family name instead of their first name: Yamamoto-san. For a married woman, they always go by their husband's last name. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4098 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 8 of 27 19 November 2014 at 9:28am | IP Logged | |||||
That probably depends on where he decides to live. Where I live, no one really says 'vous'. If I did want to say 'vous' to 'Monsieur So-and-So' I would have to do some digging in the phone book and the village gazette, because not even the 85 year olds expect a 'vous' or tell me anything but their given name. You'll hear a lot of 'tu' in the shops too. I only know the surname of the man who owns the land next to ours because he wrote it down, his given name being really common, when he gave me his phone number. But, then, we've chased his cows together (that's why I have his number, to alert him when his cows get loose or if a calving seems to be going wrong)... maybe that's akin to raising pigs? ;) (cf. emk's post) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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