Du or Sie in German: which one to use, and when

German has two words for “you”: du and Sie. Choosing the wrong one is one of the few things Germans notice immediately — grammar errors get you patience, the wrong pronoun gets you a small social freeze. The good news: the whole system is one decision, four situations, and a handful of verb forms.

What du and Sie actually are

Both are second-person singular. Both mean “you”. The difference is social distance, and it shows up in three places: the pronoun, the verb ending, and one capital letter.

Two patterns make this easier than it looks. First, du takes the endings -st and -t (bist, hast, sprichst), while Sie conjugates exactly like ich and wir (sind, haben, sprechen) — one form instead of a new one. Second, Sie is also the word for “they”: only the capital letter tells you which meaning you are reading. sie helfen mir with a small s is “they help me”; Sie helfen mir with a capital S is “you help me”.

When do you use du?

• Family and friends. Automatically, from childhood, forever.
• Children and teenagers. Adults duz children, and young people duz each other within minutes of meeting.
• Peers in casual settings. Sports club, university, a language course, neighbors after a while.
• Colleagues — it depends on the company. Startups, tech teams and many crafts use du plus first name from day one. Banks, law firms and traditional industry often still start with Sie. Listen to how your team greets each other on your first morning and mirror it.
• Anyone who has offered you du. Once offered, it sticks.

I use du with my colleagues, but I still use Sie with my boss.

When do you use Sie?

The video’s four categories are the right ones: Kunden, Patienten, Vorgesetzte, Fremde — customers, patients, superiors, strangers. In practice that means:

• anyone official you don’t know: the Bürgeramt, a bank, a hotel, a doctor’s reception
• people you serve professionally: customers, clients, patients
• your boss, unless the company explicitly says otherwise
• older people meeting you for the first time
• teachers when you are the parent, professors, examiners
• job interviews — always, until someone tells you otherwise

Good day, could you please help me get to the main station?

One sentence to decide: if the situation is the other person’s professional role, or you simply don’t know them, start with Sie. Being too formal costs you one word. Being too familiar costs you the conversation.

How the switch happens

The offer has its own name: the Duzen-Angebot. It sounds like this:

We can use du with each other. / Can we use du? / By the way, you can use du with me.

Who offers? The older or higher-status person: your boss, your client, your professor, the friend who introduced the group. You can ask once, softly — “Dürfen wir uns duzen?” — and you accept whichever answer comes. You never demand it.

What happens next? You switch immediately, usually to first names at the same time. The direction works both ways: if someone reverts to Sie after offering du, they are signaling distance. Staying formal after you were offered du reads the same way — cold, or annoyed. Pick it up on the very next sentence.

In many companies there is nothing to negotiate: day one starts with du and first names.

The four mistakes I correct most often

1. First name with Sie

Sie pairs with the last name or a title (Frau, Herr, Doktor). du pairs with the first name. Mixing them doesn’t sound polite, it sounds like a parody of politeness.

2. du too early

At the Bürgeramt, in a taxi, at the doctor’s, in the first week with a new client — wait for the offer. Guten Tag, können Sie mir bitte…? is never wrong.

3. Forgetting the capital letters

Sie, Ihr, Ihnen and the possessives Ihre, Ihrer are always capitalized. It is the one spelling rule in German with no exceptions, and it is the fastest way for a German to see you learned the language from a textbook that skipped it.

4. Staying formal after the offer

The moment someone says “wir können uns duzen”, your next sentence is du. Holding on to Sie after that is a statement, not politeness.

du and Sie at work and in real life

• Job interviews. Always Sie plus last name, and a title if there is one (Herr Dr. Müller). The verbs of the interview — könnten, würden, hätte — are polite forms of their own: see Konjunktiv II: polite German at work.
• Doctor and hospital. Patients are Sie until they offer du; some elderly patients will, after a few visits. Doctors are Herr Doktor / Frau Doktor plus Sie. Nurses normally address patients with Sie — the professional vocabulary around it is covered in German for Nurses.
• First contact in writing. Any letter or email to someone you don’t know starts Sehr geehrte Frau … / Sehr geehrter Herr … and stays with Sie until the person switches — see How to write a formal letter (Goethe B1).
• Introductions. When you meet someone new, the greeting already tells you which register you are in: German greetings explained.

Is the rule changing?

Slowly, yes. Many companies now start with du on day one, younger Germans switch within minutes of meeting, and digital culture pushes toward informality. But Sie is not going away: in the south, in Austria, in Swiss German-speaking regions, and in any official room, it stays the default for strangers. When you are unsure, Sie is the choice that never offends anyone.

Self-check: which form fits?

Try each one before reading the answer.

1. You are checking into a hotel, the receptionist is your age. What do you say?

First meeting, professional role: Sie. The verb takes the Sie form können.

2. Rewrite with Sie: Kannst du das Fenster zumachen?

Same verb, Sie conjugation, capitalized pronoun — nothing else changes.

3. Your colleague of two years says at lunch: “Wir können uns doch duzen.” What is your next sentence?

Switch now, du forms, first name. Delaying it is the awkward option.

4. Which is correct at the airport? Frau Meier, ist das Ihr Koffer? or Frau Meier, ist das dein Koffer?

Your — Ihr Koffer. A stranger’s bag, first conversation: Sie. (If Frau Meier is the friend you travelled with, the du version is correct — the grammar follows the relationship, not the age.)

Frequently Asked Questions

Practice the switch in a real lesson

Knowing the rule and using it under pressure are different things. In a lesson we run the same conversation twice — once from Sie, once from du — until the form you need appears without a pause.

References

1. Duden: du
2. Lingolia: Personalpronomen in der deutschen Grammatik
3. Du oder Sie? Wann man duzt und wann man siezt