Hello friends,
my regards to all of you. Today we will touch quite interesting topic regarding communication between people. Generally there are two ways to address someone: in German we mean “Sie” (formal) or “du” (informal) pronouns under that.
As you may notice, “Sie” corresponds to official communication, meanwhile “du” – to unofficial. Both personal pronouns have their own German verb analogs “siezen“ and “duzen“.
The situations, when we use “siezen” is communication with people who are older than us or have higher hierarchical position in the company. Another point, when we meet people for the first time and don’t know them well – this is recommended” option” by default.
Apart of that “siezen” is often utilized in educational-, government-, financial organizations, healthcare and hospitality. It is a matter of respect to other people. In German-speaking world addressing “du” to your teacher, lecturer or professor at school, colleague or university is a red flag, that might lead to unpleasant situations. Especially when you have German language exam, for example at Goethe institute🙂. No matter which language level you have, it is more safe to use “Sie” instead of “du”. Please pay attention to it.
As stated above, official approach is a common practice and people talk to each other, I would call it in a “dry” style. From other perspective we may notice nowadays growing trend towards informality. That means people communicate as partners and not as officials. “Du” style signifies trust and intimacy and allows people to build friendly relations.
Let me bring few examples with “duzen” and “siezen” verbs.
Du sollst ihn nicht siezen. – You shouldn’t address him formally.
Sie können mich ab jetzt duzen. – From now on you can informally address me.
Können wir uns siezen oder duzen? – Can we use formal or informal address?
Ich duze dich doch schon lange. – I’ve been on first-name terms with you for a long time.
Few words on this topic about my personal work experience in technical support field. When I started job in IT company as a service desk agent 9 years ago, from the very beginning I got a rule to use “Sie” and never “du”. This known approach I learned at foreign language school I had visited many years ago. Such policy had been preserved after technical support engineer promotion and I tried to be official with my clients all the time. One day at work I started to realize, that my colleagues were using informal way, simply calling clients by name. I couldn’t realize how it was possible.
After some time due to company restructure, I had to quit the job and joined another company not as technical support engineer, but as service desk agent. There I discovered how easily my colleagues communicated with clients utilizing “du”. I also tried that, much to my surprise it worked! One important point to mention, “du” (duzen) approach is relevant when discussing clients issues on the chat and not on the phone. When I get a call, then “Sie” approach is “enabled”, becase you don’t know the caller. However when switching to chat after the call “du” approach works fine without any complaints from customers. Because they want to have solution to their problem but not formality🙂
With this in mind I would like to close this remarkable topic,friends, at least for now.
Please find another articles:
Cherry-picking German text for memorizing interesting phrases
30 useful German phrases for daily conversation
Few quick tips regarding German learning with practical examples
Bleiben Sie gesund. In case of dear friend – “du” style – bleibe gesund and take care.
