A2 · The finishing touches
du, Sie, and how formal to be
duzen und siezen
German makes you choose a level of formality in every single sentence you address to somebody.
English has one word for "you". German has three: du for one person you are on familiar terms with, ihr for several such people, and Sie for anybody else, one or many. There is no neutral option, so every sentence addressed to a person states a relationship.
Sie is always capitalised and takes the same verb form as the third-person plural: Sie kommen looks exactly like "they come" and only the capital letter and the context separate them. Du is written small in modern spelling, except in letters where the older capital is still widely used and not wrong.
The rule of thumb that will not embarrass you: use Sie with any adult you do not know, and switch only when the other person offers. Offering it is a small ritual — Wir können uns gern duzen — and it is normally the older person or the more senior one who makes the offer.
Die Form
| one person, familiar | du — Kommst du mit? |
| several people, familiar | ihr — Kommt ihr mit? |
| formal, one or several | Sie — Kommen Sie mit? |
| the matching possessives | dein / euer / Ihr |
| the matching object forms | dich, dir / euch / Ihnen |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
Sie always carries a capital S, in every form.
Kann ich Ihnen helfen?Can I help you?
Sie takes the infinitive form of the verb, like the third-person plural.
Sie haben recht.You are right.
The imperative with Sie keeps the pronoun; the du imperative drops it.
Warten Sie bitte. — Warte bitte.Please wait.
Switching is offered, not taken.
Wollen wir uns duzen?Shall we use first names?
Genauer hingesehen
Where the line actually falls today
The border has moved and is still moving. Children and students are du to each other without negotiation; so are most people in sport, in clubs and increasingly in technology companies, where whole firms are on du terms by house rule. Shops, offices, authorities, doctors and neighbours you do not know remain Sie.
The safe strategy for a learner is to mirror what you are given. If somebody addresses you with Sie, answer with Sie; if they use du first, you may. Getting this wrong is not a grammar mistake and is not heard as one — it is heard as either over-familiar or stiff, and both are easy to avoid by simply following.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
-
you address a group where some are du and some Sie
German uses Sie for the whole group.
Kommen Sie alle bitte herein.Would you all come in please.
The formal form covers everybody; the familiar one would exclude the people it does not apply to.
-
a text addresses an unknown reader
advertising and apps often use du deliberately, to sound close.
Melde dich jetzt an.Sign up now.
It is a choice of tone rather than a rule, and it is a recent one.
Woran man es erkennt
- du
- ihr
- Sie
- Ihnen
- Ihr
- euch
- dich
- dir
Beispielsätze
Wie heißt du?What is your name?
Wie heißen Sie?What is your name?
Habt ihr Hunger?Are you hungry?
Darf ich Sie etwas fragen?May I ask you something?
Ich schreibe dir morgen.I will write to you tomorrow.
Noch 6 Beispielsätze
Können Sie mir helfen?Could you help me?
Kannst du mir helfen?Could you help me?
Ich gebe Ihnen die Unterlagen.I will give you the documents.
Setzt euch bitte.Take a seat, all of you.
Wir sind seit gestern per du.We have been on first-name terms since yesterday.
Grüßen Sie Ihre Frau von mir.Give my regards to your wife.
Besonderheiten (2)
-
The verbs for it
German has verbs for the act itself: <z>duzen</z> and <z>siezen</z>. <z>Wir duzen uns</z> means "we are on du terms", and <z>Er hat mich gesiezt</z> reports a distance that was noticed. English has no single word for either, which is one measure of how much the distinction matters here.
-
Ihr means two different things
Small <z>ihr</z> is the familiar plural "you"; capital <z>Ihr</z> is the formal possessive "your". <z>Ihr Buch</z> at the start of a sentence is genuinely ambiguous in writing and is resolved only by the verb that follows.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
Written small, sie means "they" or "she", and the sentence turns into "what are they called?" The capital letter is not decoration: it is the only thing distinguishing three different meanings that share one set of verb forms. In speech the distinction is carried entirely by context, which is why the written form guards it so carefully.
Sie with a capital S is the person in front of you; sie with a small one is somebody else.
Jetzt selbst
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