Du vs Sie in German: When to Use Each

German has an informal "you", du, and a polite one, Sie. Use du with friends, family, children and people you're on first-name terms with. Use Sie with adults you don't know, officials, and most people at work until they suggest otherwise. When in doubt, Sie is the safe choice.

The quick table

	du	ihr	Sie
Who	One person, informal	Several people, informal	One or more people, polite
Verb	du hast	ihr habt	Sie haben
Object	dich, dir	euch	Sie, Ihnen
Possessive	dein	euer	Ihr

Polite Sie is always written with a capital S, in every form: Sie, Ihnen, Ihr. That's how you tell it apart from sie (she, they) in writing. In speech, the verb usually makes it clear: Sie haben can mean "you have" or "they have", so context decides.

Use Sie with

• Adults you don't know: shop staff, neighbours you've just met, people on the street.
• Officials, doctors, teachers (if you're an adult student) and customers.
• Colleagues and managers in traditional workplaces, until someone offers du.

Entschuldigung, können Sie mir helfen? (Excuse me, can you help me?)

Use du with

• Family, friends and children.
• Other students and young people, almost always from the start.
• Many workplaces, especially start-ups and tech companies, where du is the norm.
• Online, in forums and on social media, where du is usual.

Switching to du

The verbs are duzen (to say du) and siezen (to say Sie). The offer to switch normally comes from the older or more senior person: Wollen wir uns duzen? (Shall we say du?) Once you've agreed, going back to Sie would feel cold, so it's a one-way step.

Adults usually call each other by surname with Sie (Frau Müller, Herr Schmidt) and by first name with du. There's a middle ground in some offices: first name with Sie, sometimes called the "Hamburger Sie".

Don't forget ihr

When you talk to a group of friends, du becomes ihr: Kommt ihr heute Abend? (Are you all coming tonight?) To a group you'd each address with Sie, it stays Sie: Kommen Sie heute Abend?

Test yourself

Choose du, ihr or Sie, then check below.

1. Asking a stranger at the train station for the time.
2. Talking to your best friend.
3. Talking to two of your friends at once.
4. Writing to a landlord you've never met.
5. Talking to a child in the park.
6. Your new boss hasn't suggested du yet.

Answers: 1. Sie. 2. du. 3. ihr. 4. Sie. 5. du. 6. Sie.

Keep going

Our German pronouns lesson covers every form of du, ihr and Sie in all four cases, with a quiz. For another pair English speakers mix up, see Wissen vs Kennen.

You'll pick up the feel for du and Sie fastest by noticing how people in real stories address each other. Our Learn German app takes you from vocabulary and grammar through graded reading to full classics with a translation under every line. It's free to download, though some books and extra content need diamonds you earn while learning, or Premium.