IMHO, one of the most difficult parts of mastering a foreign language is learning when and where to use the right form of the pronoun “you”. You see,  in many languages, including Italian and German, the two which I have most recently attempted to master,  you need to figure out when to use the “you-familiar” familiar  and when to use the “you-polite” form. The rules that govern when one does this vary from language-to-language and culture-to-culture, and they aren’t necessarily written down or easy to follow.

In Italian, for example,  the “rules” are generally summarized as:

— when talking to a friend or relative your own age or younger, use the “you-familiar” form,  tu.
— when talking to a person in a position of authority, e.g. your boss, or to an older relative or neighbor, use Lei, the “you-polite” form.

In German, you distinguish when you use Du (you-familiar) vs. using Sie (you-polite) along similar lines.

It actually became more complicated for me to understand this  when learning German, though, because in my German class we used Du all the time, even with the teachers (i.e. people in position of authority), and regardless of the age of the people we were talking to.   But in the real world, you see,  it’s considered very impolite to use Du with someone randomly like that, particularly if they are older than you are.  Even if you are on a first name basis with someone, you still have to negotiate using Du with them: it’s not automatic after a certain amount of time. But because we rarely practiced the polite forms in class, I was inadvertently insulting people left and right when I left class and talked with people in town.

I have to tell you, that was frustrating as all get out, as using Du all of the time isn’t at all correct, but I never practiced the verb forms that go along with the Sie pronoun. In general, I found that the expectation is that you start using Sie when you meet someone. If and when you  switch to using  Du is  something you negotiate after you get to know someone for at least a little while, regardless of age,  regardless of their relative position in life to you, and regardless of whether or not you are on a first name basis with them.  Maybe you eventually move to Du with that person, but maybe you don’t ever do that.

However,  once you’ve moved to Du (or tu in Italian) with someone, it’s an insult to use the formal one again with them later on. So, you have to keep track of who you Du with, and who you don’t.

To recap, it’s an insult to use Du (tu) to early, but then an insult to use Sie (lei) too long.

Confused? I certainly was. I always put my confusion about this topic down to being a native speaker of English, a language where we don’t have the distinction between “you-familiar” and “you-polite”. You is just you. I figured that native speakers of languages that have these different you forms must develop an  instinct to know how and when to use them.

But then Chris ran across a news piece recently about  a native Spanish-speaking reporter in Spain who was interviewing the King of Spain.  If ever there was a place to use the you-polite, this was it.  The reporter got all flustered during the interview, though, and accidentally used the Spanish equivalent of  tu  with the King,  instead of the culturally appropriate you-polite form.

Hah, you see that?!  Even the natives get it wrong sometimes.  Somehow, that makes me feel better about having accidentally insulted so many people over the years by using the incorrect form.  I mean, I got it wrong all the time, but at least I never gave the tu to the King.