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#Post#: 15895--------------------------------------------------
Question deleted.
By: SHL Date: May 21, 2019, 2:52 pm
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Question deleted. With 11 views and no answers this questions
has been withdrawn since no one is interested in it. I’m not
wasting my time with this nonsense. I have better things to do.
#Post#: 15943--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: Nikola Date: May 22, 2019, 1:54 pm
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[quote author=SHL link=topic=1077.msg15895#msg15895
date=1558468357]
Question deleted. With 11 views and no answers this questions
has been withdrawn since no one is interested in it. I’m not
wasting my time with this nonsense. I have better things to do.
[/quote]
Steve, I was going to reply. I've just been really busy, sorry.
Also, I can only write about Czech because I'm not sure if the
same rules apply to German. Don't be like that.
#Post#: 15944--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: Aliph Date: May 22, 2019, 2:01 pm
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?????
What is going on?
#Post#: 15956--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: Nikola Date: May 22, 2019, 3:39 pm
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So, we do have some rules about the T-V Distinction as some call
it. The informal way is called "tykání". Who offers tykání to
whom? A woman to a man, at workplace the superior to the
subordinate, and the older person to the younger person. You
asked about a situation where you meet with someone you were
friends with at school but you are adults now. I haven't seen
this particular situation described anywhere but I suppose the
general rule would apply that if you were once on informal
terms, it is not appropriate to change to formal. From my view,
I have to say I would find it very awkward if someone I used to
know as a child suddenly addressed me formally, even if I hadn't
seen them in years. It's just a different kind of relationship.
They're not a stranger to you.
So this is how it would work in Czech.
#Post#: 15959--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: NealC Date: May 22, 2019, 4:03 pm
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It was a question about the formal and informal, especially in
German, that only one or two people on the board could have
answered. There was no reason to delete it.
#Post#: 16107--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: Alharacas Date: May 24, 2019, 4:35 pm
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Steven, this was going to be quite a long answer (which I didn't
have time for when I first saw your question), and the next day
I was having a really serious computer problem - yes, again, but
this time definitely not my fault.
The thing is, for various reasons the question of formal Sie vs.
informal du has become quite complicated.
In Western Germany, it used to be quite simple, mostly, just as
you'd said in your original post, Steven: du for children,
friends and family, Sie for everybody else.
Then came the student revolution of 1968 and suddenly,
addressing people formally was a sign of belonging to the yucky
bourgeois establishment, while du became the youthful, with-it
address of choice. For some. So, you shouldn't wonder if a
balding guy with a white ponytail cosily addresses you
informally to beg a cigarette off you. Everybody else kept
things as they'd always been.
At school, teachers were supposed to address students formally
from the age of 16. What actually happened, ca. 1978, was this:
New, decidedly laddish teacher* during his first lesson: So, I'm
supposed to ask you whether you'd like to be addressed formally.
After it's become clear that nobody else is going to say
anything...
I: Yes, please.
Teacher: "Yes, please", what?
I: I would prefer to be addressed formally. By you.
T: Oh. Er. Well, since nobody else wants this... addressing the
rest of the class do you? - I'll just keep addressing you
informally.
And that was that.
*German and PE. Even as teenagers, we knew that was a
combination only chosen by the very stupid and/or the very lazy.
In Eastern Germany, on the other hand, people were supposed to
be brothers in communism, so the formal Sie became the hallmark
of inveterate bourgeois capitalists. Which is why I found myself
- very much to my surprise - being addressed informally by every
single builder, plumber and carpenter I asked for an estimate
after I'd bought my house in Brandenburg in 1996.
These days, you mainly play it by ear and often get it wrong.
Rule of thumb: people over 80 will prefer the formal Sie, at
least in former Western Germany, while people introduced or
introducing themselves by their first name will prefer the
informal du.
#Post#: 16116--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: SHL Date: May 24, 2019, 10:22 pm
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[quote author=Alharacas link=topic=1077.msg16107#msg16107
date=1558733727]
Steven, this was going to be quite a long answer (which I didn't
have time for when I first saw your question), and the next day
I was having a really serious computer problem - yes, again, but
this time definitely not my fault.
The thing is, for various reasons the question of formal Sie vs.
informal du has become quite complicated.
In Western Germany, it used to be quite simple, mostly, just as
you'd said in your original post, Steven: du for children,
friends and family, Sie for everybody else.
Then came the student revolution of 1968 and suddenly,
addressing people formally was a sign of belonging to the yucky
bourgeois establishment, while du became the youthful, with-it
address of choice. For some. So, you shouldn't wonder if a
balding guy with a white ponytail cosily addresses you
informally to beg a cigarette off you. Everybody else kept
things as they'd always been.
At school, teachers were supposed to address students formally
from the age of 16. What actually happened, ca. 1978, was this:
New, decidedly laddish teacher* during his first lesson: So, I'm
supposed to ask you whether you'd like to be addressed formally.
After it's become clear that nobody else is going to say
anything...
I: Yes, please.
Teacher: "Yes, please", what?
I: I would prefer to be addressed formally. By you.
T: Oh. Er. Well, since nobody else wants this... addressing the
rest of the class do you? - I'll just keep addressing you
informally.
And that was that.
*German and PE. Even as teenagers, we knew that was a
combination only chosen by the very stupid and/or the very lazy.
In Eastern Germany, on the other hand, people were supposed to
be brothers in communism, so the formal Sie became the hallmark
of inveterate bourgeois capitalists. Which is why I found myself
- very much to my surprise - being addressed informally by every
single builder, plumber and carpenter I asked for an estimate
after I'd bought my house in Brandenburg in 1996.
These days, you mainly play it by ear and often get it wrong.
Rule of thumb: people over 80 will prefer the formal Sie, at
least in former Western Germany, while people introduced or
introducing themselves by their first name will prefer the
informal du.
[/quote]
Thank you Alharacas for the detailed answer. The only reason I
asked was because I did notice a change over the last 40 odd
years in the Sie/du usage. When I started learning German in
1977, it was fairly simple, and all the language learning was
geared, of course, toward West German speaking style, since no
one was planning on spending much time in the East. Family,
friends, and children were always du, and everyone else Sie. I
vividly recall my German friend, Uli, telling me when she was
over here (I met her back in 1977 when she was a high school
exchange student from 1977-1978) that at a specific age the
teacher at her Gymnasium had to start addressing them with Sie,
but I wouldn’t recall what the age was, 15, 16? I knew it was
somewhere around there.
At University it was really easy because my German professors
were native speakers and Sie was just the rule of the day for
them. But that was back around 1979-1982, and they were both
around 60 or so at the time (Dr. Stock was from Hamburg and born
in 1922, and Dr. Enßlin, the former SD man during the war, was
born around 1913 as I later found out). So for them, Sie kind of
went without saying. And I just got used to that rule and sort
of liked it, I suppose because it was just easy to remember.
Unfortunately, I never got into the DDR, but I was pretty close
to it, in Braunschweig. I think the closest I got was driving up
to the fence around Helmstedt and climbing these bleachers and
putting some money in a pair of binoculars to peer into the
East. Not too exciting. It looked just the same on either side
as far as I could tell.
But, I agree, I have noticed now you just have to play it by
ear. If you address someone you really just met and don’t know
at all, and they are younger than 80, they will usually just say
“Oh, lets just say du to each other.” I ‘d say there was much
less of that in 1980. The only exception nowadays seems to be in
retail stores, or hotels, restaurants and the like. That’s just
my impression anyway. Like on italki, all the teachers say du
their students.
#Post#: 16118--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: Alharacas Date: May 25, 2019, 4:47 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=SHL link=topic=1077.msg16116#msg16116
date=1558754565]
The only exception nowadays seems to be in retail stores, or
hotels, restaurants and the like. That’s just my impression
anyway. Like on italki, all the teachers say du their students.
[/quote]
Yes, I agree, on the internet, at least in forums and the like,
it's as if Sie had never existed.
It's only ever used anymore in the kind of email where you'd
have written a business letter a few decades ago.
What about Czech, Polish and French on the internet? Is formal
address used in the same way as in real life? Or is informal
address more common?
#Post#: 16143--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: Nikola Date: May 25, 2019, 9:41 am
---------------------------------------------------------
That's a good point about the internet. I haven't seen the
formal version (vy) much on forums. You'd still use it in an
email or in a message to a customer, for example. Some online
shops have a Q&A section and the staff usually address people
formally when answering their questions, same goes for medical
websites where doctors answer people's questions but I'm sure
you'd find exceptions. On italki, students automatically address
me informally when they contact me so I do the same. Last time
this happened, I found out my student was roughly the age of my
parents (I only found out when we had our first lesson) and
immediately felt bad for saying "ty" but changing it would have
been more awkward that carrying on using "ty".
#Post#: 16175--------------------------------------------------
Re: Question deleted.
By: SHL Date: May 25, 2019, 10:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Nikola link=topic=1077.msg16143#msg16143
date=1558795300]
That's a good point about the internet. I haven't seen the
formal version (vy) much on forums. You'd still use it in an
email or in a message to a customer, for example. Some online
shops have a Q&A section and the staff usually address people
formally when answering their questions, same goes for medical
websites where doctors answer people's questions but I'm sure
you'd find exceptions. On italki, students automatically address
me informally when they contact me so I do the same. Last time
this happened, I found out my student was roughly the age of my
parents (I only found out when we had our first lesson) and
immediately felt bad for saying "ty" but changing it would have
been more awkward that carrying on using "ty".
[/quote]
Yes, Nikola, I think in most languages there is a trend away
from the formal you, and toward the informal for some reason
today. My hunch is it has to do with the geopolitics and
universality of English, which centuries ago did away with the
formal and informal you (what did they have, thee and thou, or
ye?) So, maybe other languages just aren’t seeing the point in
having it. What I find rather fascinating about German is what
is called das Hamburger Sie, on the one hand, and das Münchener
Du (or Kassiererinnen-Du) on the other. Both of these phrases
are impossible to translate into English, because they pose an
impossible situation to occur in English. As to the Hamburger
Sie (I got this off a ZDF TV movie, Nord Nord Mord), that’s
where you feel obligated to address someone (a superior in a
business, or public office, like say your Police Commissioner)
with the formal Sie, but at the same time feel it reasonable,
convenient and necessary to also call him by his first name, or
any nickname he wants, say as “boss” for example. One way of
addressing the person seems formal using Sie, yet concurrently
you address him in an informal way using other than a “you”
word.
The flop-flop of that is das Münchner Du (or Kassiererinnen-Du).
You address your co-worker by first name, rather formally, yet
also call her du, using the informal you. So for example, “Frau
Müller. Weißt du was die Kondome kosten?” Yet take the Hamburger
Sie:” Frank, kommen Sie bitte mal?”
It would be interesting to know if Czech or other languages with
the formal/informal you have this mix.
I asked the board on germanstackexchange once how this would
translate into English, and it kind of stumped everyone. There’s
a bit of formality to the site, (like it’s for college people,
or professional language people). I think one person said just
footnote it. Another re-wrote the entire sentence, doing a
fairly good job. This is one of those challenging things about
translation that make it fun.
Can you imagine being a professional simultaneous translator for
governments? Talk about a huge responsibility. Imagine
translating Korean and English during a Kim Jung-Un and Trump
meeting. The translator(s) better get it right or they could
cause some serious problems. You always see them standing there
on the sidelines with note pads hastily writing things down.
It’s quite an art. And can you imagine the screening process to
select these people for those jobs? For English to some other
European language, no big deal. But, Korean, or Mandarin? Wow.
Not easy.
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