Quote:
Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
Yes, it's the same word. But it sounds very natural to me, because it's the same in French: using "tu" when talking to friends and family (and now, with co-corkers) is normal, but using "tu" when talking to a stranger is insulting. Though this is changing now, and "tu" has become much more frequent in the last decades.
There are more and more instances of ads (those targetting young people) using "tu". I find this shocking but apparently, young people must find it normal.
It looks like in this matter, France is following in the steps of Scandinavia and, more recently, Germany. My sister lived in Denmark for a few months, and she told me that nobody uses the equivalent of "tu" any longer, except when talking to the King (which incidentally my sister didn't do  ). And I seem to see "Du" in German used much more often than "tu" in French, on magazine covers or ads, or here in the MR forum. |
Greek is the same, eh-see (εσύ) is tu, eh-sees (εσείς) is vous. I don't see the japanese anata in the same way, though. Anata from wife to husband is usually translated "dear". I never ever say εσύ or tu with that sweetness
(European) Portuguese, interestingly, has three levels of politeness. Tu, você, and o senhor/Vós, with você being in the middle of the two extremes and more frequently used.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ardeegee
Another interesting (to me, at least) variable in languages is word order: |
I think languages that tend to change their words according to case/gender/etc are more flexible in word structure, as you can understand what is meant just by looking at the word forms. In some languages it's only order that gives the information of who is doing what to whom, and changing the order changes the meaning completely. In more flexible languages (as to word order), word order can be used for emphasis. Languages with rigid word order have to find other devices for that.