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The 2015 Polyglot Gathering is brought to you by Italki.

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Become fluent in any language.

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I could welcome you to this talk by saying:

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“I would like to welcome you to my talk[br][br]

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about politeness in the German language", [br]in English.

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Who would use German I would say:

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„Ich möchte euch herzlich zu meinem Vortrag

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über Höflichkeit in der deutschen Sprache willkommen heißen.”

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And than we are right at the topic.

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Because if you noticed I used “euch.”

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So, and basically the whole idea of the talk is:

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Why did I used “euch” although I don’t know half of you,

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you know, half of the audience. I haven’t spoken to you.

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I am seeing you now for first time. I don’t know you.

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So, if we’re following the textbook examples,

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you know the textbook examples, [br]you open the textbook of German.

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It says: Yeah, if you don’t know someone and he is a stranger

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and he is an adult you say “Sie.”[br]No, I don’t.

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And the reason why in this instance it would be wrong to say “Sie”

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is basically the whole dissent of the talk.

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I was inspired by some discussions on the Facebook group Polyglots

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where people thought about.

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Okay, guys, I’m now in German and I’m quite uncertain

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because in this instance, do you say “du” or do you say “Sie”?

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Oh what? It’s easy, you know. They started talking and talking and talking.

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And the thread went long and the course was getting longer and you had to scroll through pages.

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I guess it is not that easy. Actually it can get a bit complicated. So, yes.

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Why should you pay attention?

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As I said the textbooks will explain to you how “Sie” and “du” are bacically used, the basic use.

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It will tell you how grammar works. It is fine. It is nice.

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The problem is most of textbooks do not tell you about the social protocols involved.

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You know. I mean, if you say “Sie” to a stranger at some point you become friends.

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At what point do you stop saying “Sie”? How does that work?

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You know. You can open up any textbook it will tell you that children, normally you just say “du” to children.

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That’s normal. But children grow up.

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What happens when they get older? At what point do you stop saying “du”?

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And how does it work? If you go into a shop do you always say “Sie”? – No.

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There are a lot of exceptions in special cases.

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That is one of the reasons why my fellow native speakers said:

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“Oh yeah, could we join the talk as well?” I said: “All right.”

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So, using the wrong pronoun can be a faux pas. Sometimes it can be illegal.

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We’ll talk about that later.[br]You can be insulting with either pronoun.

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So, if you say “du” in the wrong situation that can be an insult. If you use “Sie” it also can be an insult

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given the situation. It’s something you have to keep in mind.

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But the textbook is a bit status. So let’s start with the textbook explanation again.

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We have in German mainly three ways of addressing people. So that we are all on the same page.

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The first one is “Sie”, the second one is “du” or “ihr.”

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“Du” for a single person, “ihr” if we are talking to a group people.

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“Sie” is used for a single person or a group of people in a formal setting.

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There is also “er” and “sie.” We get this mostly for royalty. That is actually quit old-fashioned.

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So, sometime you will read that. “Her Royal Highness”—it is the same in English—

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“Her Royal Highness would like to have her bath”, so something like that, you know.

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But this is rarely used. We will just drop that.

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We will just concentrate on “du” , “Sie” and “ihr” because that is rather complicated, you know.

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German is not the only language that does that.

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So if you go to Scandinavian countries[br]you have “du” and “ni.”

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If you go to Dutch you have “jij” and “U.”

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If you go to French you have “tu” and “vous.”

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If you go to Spanish you have “tú” and “usted.”

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And in Old English you have “ðū” and “iow” or “ēow” and “ġē” depending on the suffix.

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The one thing you have to keep in mind is that

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if you know how this is done in German

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don’t think that you are prepared for how it’s done in the other countries.

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For example, rules in Sweden are:[br]Basically it’s “du.”

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If you have a receipt, if you have a formal document than they use the ni form.

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But usually you go to a shop, say “Hej, du”.

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The rules are quite different.

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The … Another thing, this was actually a nice thing,

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yesterday I talked with an English native speaker.

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He said: “Yeah, it is confusing for us because we do not have these politeness levels.”

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And I said: “You are utterly wrong, Lambert.”

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He said: “No, we don’t.”

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Okay, at one point I went to London Victoria.

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And I, you know, yesterday maybe at a pretty naval festival we had a taste of Irn-Bru, a Scottish lemonade.

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So I went to London Victoria and wanted to have some Irn-Bru.

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So I went to the Sainsbury’s and I didn’t see it on the shelves.

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So I asked a f????: ”Do you have Iron Brew?”

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That’s what she said: “One moment, sir, please let me tell the