Du, Sie, er und ihr: Politeness in German - Jens Grabarske at the Polyglot Gathering 2015

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I could welcome you to this talk by saying:

“I would like to welcome you to my talk

about politeness in the German language",
in English.

Who would use German I would say:

„Ich möchte euch herzlich zu meinem Vortrag

über Höflichkeit in der deutschen Sprache willkommen heißen.”

And than we are right at the topic.

Because if you noticed I used “euch.”

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

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

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

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

So, if we’re following the textbook examples,

you know the textbook examples,
you open the textbook of German.

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

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

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

is basically the whole dissent of the talk.

I was inspired by some discussions on the Facebook group Polyglots

where people thought about.

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

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

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

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

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

Why should you pay attention?

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s normal. But children grow up.

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

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

There are a lot of exceptions in special cases.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

German is not the only language that does that.

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

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

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

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

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

The one thing you have to keep in mind is that

if you know how this is done in German

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

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

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

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

The rules are quite different.

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

yesterday I talked with an English native speaker.

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

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

He said: “No, we don’t.”

Okay, at one point I went to London Victoria.

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

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

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

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

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