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Ursula Smith: 'Du' or 'Sie'?

Another issue of politeness--one that we do not have in the U.S. specifically--is the show of respect that is required in Switzerland and other German-speaking countries in many formal situations, such as that between employer and employee in the way they address each other. The German words for "you," the less formal and more familiar du and its plural ihr and the more distancing, "respectful," and formal Sie, provide some unspoken meanings which are not readily comprehensible to people from outside the culture.

In Switzerland you can never call an employer, a boss, or a teacher du--no one whom you don't know as well as you know relatives or people you've known for years--definitely not a teacher or professor. It is terrible; if you used du with your boss, you'd be fired.

What exactly does it mean to use du?

[It means] I'm putting myself on the same level as the teacher or the boss; and that is impossible. The teacher or the boss is higher up, and I'm there to do what I'm told. You can't be intimate. It would mean there wasn't enough respect.