Du or Sie?

If you are an English-speaking brand looking to enter the German market, one of the first questions your translator will ask you is how you want to address your readers: with the formal „Sie“ or the informal „du“?

And if you reply with: “What do you recommend?”, their answer will probably be: “It depends.”

You see, it is not an easy thing to decide and it has to do with your tone of voice, your target customers (their age, status, mood, …), your products, your company culture and so much more.

An approximation is the question: Would you call your customers by their first name or by their family name – Julia or Ms Scales? But this is not directly transferrable. First names are much more common in business contexts in anglophone countries than they are in Germany.

And to add to the confusion: The unwritten rules have changed quite a lot in recent years.

When I was a child, it was relatively clear: I have to say “Sie” to all adults I don’t know. Only it wasn’t so clear, actually. Because I had to say “Sie” to my teacher, even though I saw her every day, but friends of my parents I had never met before told me to say “du”. But I did figure it out eventually.

One thing that seemed certain was: Companies address their (potential) customers with “Sie” and their last name. The only exception was IKEA, but they did that to stand out and emphasize their Scandinavian culture.

Now my email inbox looks like the screenshot below. “Du” and “Sie” in a seemingly random pattern.

But it is not random.
- PayPal is positioned as a serious business and wants to emphasize its trustworthiness and respectability, so they communicate like a bank would: using the formal “Sie”.
- Back Market targets young, hip people who are conscious about sustainability, but still want to have a new-ish smartphone. Therefore, the informal “du” makes more sense.

So yes, your translator or marketing strategist will be able to advise you on the question. Just don’t expect to get a quick answer without providing lots of context.

Caution

One thing to be aware of: Many machine translation tools (like Google translate) and generative AI (like ChatGPT) don’t take that into consideration. Not only can you not choose which form of address the machine should use, it is not even consistent and often mixes things up in the same paragraph. Or in two CTAS positioned next to each other, like here:

That’s like calling your CEO Mr Miller in one sentence, and Tommy in the next. You might get away with that at the office Christmas party, but not when trying to attract new customers. It just gives them a clear sign you don’t value their experience while reading your copy and went for the cheapest option. So why would they spend their money on your product?

If you want to stand out from the crowd of auto-translated websites and make sure you hit the right note with your potential customers, get a culturally aware native speaker to advise you.

Get in touch to hear how I can help you!