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Informal and formal "you" | ||
Tags: Polite/Informal Forms | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5131 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 32 16 February 2011 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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A discussion in one of the logs got me thinking about the evolution of this particular question in different languages. I have some experiences and assumptions about the situation, and by "comparing and contrasting" the usage before and now, and getting input from others I hope to gain more knowledge on this.
Norwegian In the 60ies we would always say "De" (formal you) to all adults we did not know well. Now "De" has almost disappeared from the language. I use it perhaps twice a year, and only if talking to little old ladies from the Western side of town who use the same form to me. I would think 99.99 % of the population does not use it ever. We use the informal you "Du" even when talking to the Prime Minister or a bishop. The only exception might be the King, but there we would use "Your Majesty" and not "De". French When I lived in France in the 70ies, I would say "vous" (formal you) to absolutely all adults, some of my teachers said "vous" back at us (we were 13-14 year olds) and the lady I lived with for a year always said "vous" to me. I had friends who said "vous" to their own parents, and it was in some cases even used between spouses (though I belive this was very rare). It was also used between adults. My impression is that this is much more relaxed now, but in shops they still use the formal form to me, and it is "de rigeur" when you go above a certain level in the business world. I would however usually say "tu" to colleagues at my own level as soon as I got to know them. I assume that within student circles the informal form is used only. It that also the case when a student speaks to a teacher now? Spanish "Usted" (formal you) used to be the norm in the 70ies, sometimes used within the family circle (a daughter-in-law to her mother-in-law for instance), even among people from humble backgrounds. (This experience comes from a little village in Southern Spain - it may have been different in the cities.)You would always say "Usted" to teachers and indeed to most adults. Now this has changed a lot, and seems to be used more for business hot shots, or for people you want to show particular respect. It is also used in shops (possibly only to people over a certain age). German When I learned German we were taught to always use "Sie" (formal you), and we were even told that we would most likely never know any Germans that well that we would say "du" to them. I have had little contact with Germany/Switzerland over the years, but what little experience I have indicates that the formal use is disappearing among the young, but I see in business settings that the formal form is used a lot more than for other languages I know. A friend that works in Deutsche Bahn wrote a note to her boss which started: "Sehr geehrter Herr Metzner" and she does of course use the "Sie" with him. Such a degree of formality borders on the schocking for a Norwegian, particularly since he was 10 years younger than her. Russian Here I do not know, but would like to know. What is the distrubution of formal and informal you, before and now? Other languages What about other languages, do they distinguish between the two forms, and has there been an evolution? Edited by Fasulye on 17 February 2011 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4863 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 2 of 32 16 February 2011 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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In Bulgarian, "ти" is used informally to refer to you and "Вие" (always capitalized) is used to refer to you formally.
"вие" (lowercase) means you in the plural informally and "Вие" (again capitalized) means you in the plural formally. Вие should always be used when talking to someone who you don't know or when conversing with someone older than you. Also, like how Usted causes the verb to conjugate in the third person singular in Spanish, Вие causes the verb to conjugate in the second person plural, almost as if you are referring to a more respected person as being several people. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| poligloton Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5504 days ago 104 posts - 128 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, Portuguese, Italian Studies: French, Romanian, Catalan | Message 3 of 32 17 February 2011 at 12:08am | IP Logged | |||||
In Spain, it is much more common to use 'tú' than 'usted'. We always speak 'tú' to our parents, friends, and pretty much anyone in the street, unless it is an unknown person of age. In a formal setting, like a business meeting, you would be expected to use 'usted'. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6953 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 32 17 February 2011 at 12:18am | IP Logged | |||||
See these threads: Italian/German: formal "you" = "she" Usage of Polite/Formal You... "Tu" vs "Usted" in Spanish Insults & Arguments
You've probably heard of honorifics which deal with how one addresses other people depending on their social standing. In general, I'm most likely to use the informal address at a party (excluding high-end outings) or dealing with people who are (or whom I believe to be) younger than 30 outside non-business-related settings. Otherwise it's formal address until I am either told otherwise to switch to informal or we get the mutual feeling that we know each other enough that we can use informal address even when talking about formal/serious matters. Within the languages that I've studied only Hungarian and Polish stand out from the others when it comes to the common division of T-V. - Modern Hungarian has a spectrum of T-V but it's more elaborate as you can see at Wikipedia's description. At opposite ends you have the pronouns te (Du)/ti (Ihr) versus ön (Sie - singular)/önök (Sie - plural). Somewhere in between you have maga (~ Sie - sing.)/maguk (~ Sie - plur.). There're also the obsolete or folksy pronouns "kend" and "kegyed" which I have only heard used in a Hungarian opera when the lead asks another character "Hát kend magyar?" (So you're Hungarian?) To keep things simple we learned that a foreigner sticks with "ön"/"önök" for formal address and "te"/"ti" for informal address. "Maga"/"maguk" was something that we learned to understand but not really use because of the subtlety involved (as explained in Wikipedia's description above). On a side note, this rather fine distinction between T-V in Hungarian also shows up in how you greet people with "How are you?" or "How do you do?" Hogy (te) vagy? (~ How are ya? - informal singular - 2nd person singular) Hogy (ti) vagytok? (~ How are ya? - informal plural - 2nd person plural) Hogy (maga/ön) van? (~ How are you? - formal singular - 3rd person singular) Hogy (maguk/önök) vannak? (~ How are you? - formal plural - 3rd person plural) Hogy tetszik lenni? (~ How are you? - literally "How (to you) does it please to be?" - formal but somewhat affectionate singular/plural. You'd usually see this when one greets the elderly including instances of children greeting grandparents or great-grandparents, or a middle-aged person greeting an elderly stranger). - Modern Polish is exceptional among Slavonic languages since its division of T-V mirrors that of Hungarian. There's a description of it in this chapter from Google Books while Wikipedia touches on the subject in this article. Strictly speaking: ty = Du (i.e. takes 2nd person singular - masculine or feminine depending on the addressee) wy = Ihr (i.e. takes 2nd person plural - masculine or feminine depending on the company) pan = Sie (singular male) (i.e. takes 3rd person singular masculine) pani = Sie (singular female) (i.e. takes 3rd person singular feminie) panowie = Sie (plural all-men) (i.e. takes 3rd person plural masculine) panie = Sie (plural all-female) (i.e. takes 3rd person plural feminine) państwo = Sie (plural mixed company) (i.e takes 3rd person plural masculine) During the communist era, some Polish apparatchiks eschewed the three-way distinction of T-V + "pan" etc. and switched to basic T-V on the model of their Russian comrades (i.e. "ty" = Du and "wy" = "Ihr" & "Sie"). This usage didn't spread beyond the politically-ambitious or some diehard communists. It's actually paradoxical that in a supposedly classless society, these apparatchiks made themselves stand out as a distinct social class in all but name by using a convention that was foreign compared to what all other Poles had been using. EDIT: I forgot about Romanian when I first posted this (Romanian seems to have been the forgotten language even though I was going at it reasonably intensively for a few months some time ago). - The Romanian T-V distinction is a bit like Hungarian's and Polish's tu = tu voi = vous (but not marked for politeness or formality in Romanian as "vous" can be in French) dumneata = you (formal, polite - singular, verbs are in 2nd person singular) dumneavoastră = you (formal, more polite - singular or plural but verbs are in 2nd person plural. It's similar to "vous" when used politely or formally) dumnealui = he (formal, polite) dumneaei = she (formal, polite) dumnealor = they (formal, polite) A Romanian co-worker explained to me the difference between tu, dumneata, dumneavoastră and voi. In general "tu" and "voi" are informal while she would use "dumneata" on me (being a co-worker or a worker of lower rank) but "dumneavoastră" on our boss or a group of co-workers regardless of rank. Wikipedia has a fairly informative article about T-V distinctions in many languages. Edited by Chung on 17 February 2011 at 5:50am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4897 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 32 17 February 2011 at 12:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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Your teacher said "vous" to you? I was under the impression that all children were called "tu" by adults.
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| tozick Diglot Groupie Poland Joined 6159 days ago 44 posts - 69 votes Speaks: Polish*, English | Message 6 of 32 17 February 2011 at 1:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Chung's post describes the situation in Polish pretty well, but I will comment on the kind of usage that he didn't.
In schools you always address your teachers per Pan/Pani, saying 'ty' is regarded very offensive. Also in highschool students usually call teachers professors irregardles of their actual title. When it comes to teachers addressing students it varies a lot. In primary and lower secondary school it's always 'ty', but in highschool I'd say half of the teachers use the form Pan/Pani. Also it is pretty common amongst students to use a form 'Pan/Pani + given name' while talking to eg janitors. That form is a bit rude and usually only accepted between colleagues or boss to a subortinate. If you used it while talking to a teacher it would be pretty much as bad as using the 'ty' form. One thing which is becoming more and more popular amongst young people is using the form 'ty' in places like mcdonalds starbucks etc. Usually shop assistants are relatively young so some teenagers use the form 'ty' while talking to them, and shop assistants respond with the same form. It's not very common and I'd say it's still considered bad manners by most of the people, but it's spreading. Within family it varies a bit aswell. The 'normal' contemporary way is to use 'ty' verb forms with all members of your family. I've met few people who used the 3rd person singular while talking to grandmothers and grandfathers but it's definitely considered old fashioned/weird. The new trend is to call your parents by their given names(ehh those american films...). It's a relatively new phenomenon, and opinions about it vary. Personally I never use that, because it just seems wrong. Good friends of your parents are usually called 'aunt/uncle' and you use the 'ty' conjugation with them. While the general rule is simple and you can't really go wrong with it - 'ty' for friends, 'Pan/Pani' for strangers, it gets a bit complicated when it comes to changing from the formal to the informal form. It has to be suggested by the person who is higher in hierarchy, and just to make it harder, just because the person who is higher in hierarchy talks to you with 'ty' it doesn't mean you can respond like that:) Regarding the whole hierarchy thing - older people are higher than younger ones, women are higher than men. Edited by tozick on 17 February 2011 at 3:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6953 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 32 17 February 2011 at 2:40am | IP Logged | |||||
Your comments bring to mind how I first saw Polish honorifics in action. In my Polish class at the university our professor always addressed any of us students as "pan(i) [first name in vocative]" so for example, Gosia was addressed as "pani Małgosiu!" and Ryszard was "panie Ryszardzie!". In turn we always addressed our instructor with "pani Profesor!" (and never with "Proszę pani!"). However if my memory serves me correctly, she occasionally used the informal forms on us when asking something like "Czy jesteście gotowi?" before beginning a drill. I never heard of this trend in Poland for children to call parents by their first names. Without exception I've heard my friends in Poland address their parents only with "mamo"/"mamuś", "tato" and the like whenever they were on the phone with them or seeing each other in person. I think that it's a stereotype that most American families tolerate children addressing their parents by their first names. Certainly I would have been slapped for doing such a thing, and doing so now with my parents even as an adult would be considered quite rude. In my childhood, I had a classmate who regularly addressed his mother (his parents had divorced) by her first name. This was to our interest as children (obviously) but to the surprise of our teacher when she heard about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5142 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 8 of 32 17 February 2011 at 2:44am | IP Logged | |||||
In central Colombia usted is the prevalent form, while tu is reserved for family, close friends, children or when a young man addresses a female peer. Furthermore, usted is by no means infrequent even in those instances. Tutear a stranger, particularly another man, can be considered rude and even offensive. In the coastal region on the other hand the tu form is predominant in most circumstances. There is a lot of subtlety involved. When a parent that habitually uses the tu form with his or her child wishes to scold him, he or she may switch to usted as a way of sounding harsher. Edited by Juаn on 17 February 2011 at 2:46am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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