Rocket Spanish Community

My Mexican friends at a local restaurant are quick to switch to informal but usually with other Mexicans. My secretary is Puerto Rican. She refuses to use anything other than the formal with me even though I have know her for years. Perhaps that is related to our positions at the office.

My German friend told me that in his culture, after he gets to know someone well enough, he will take that person to a pub (I guess everything in Germany is solved in a pub) and tell them that he would like to switch to addressing each other in the informal way from that point forward. They click beer mugs and toast to it. He smiled broadly when he described that. I laughed at first but I think he was actually serious. Even if he was "elaborating" a little, he did make the point that they do not take it lightly.

Perhaps this is just one of those things where you have to feel your way through but I would appreciate any thoughts/experiences you could share around when to switch from formal(polite) to informal.

As we say in English, "thanks in advance".

When in doubt, take your cue from the person/people you're with.

That's the ONLY way to know when to use the formal or informal "you" if you're a foreigner to the culture. Every culture is different, and there are subcultures within every culture (for example, rural people will often be more formal than urban people).

So if the person you're speaking with switches to tú, do it yourself! But if the person always addresses you as usted, follow suit.

tocayo wrote:My Mexican friends at a local restaurant are quick to switch to informal but usually with other Mexicans. My secretary is Puerto Rican. She refuses to use anything other than the formal with me even though I have know her for years. Perhaps that is related to our positions at the office.

My German friend told me that in his culture, after he gets to know someone well enough, he will take that person to a pub (I guess everything in Germany is solved in a pub) and tell them that he would like to switch to addressing each other in the informal way from that point forward. They click beer mugs and toast to it. He smiled broadly when he described that. I laughed at first but I think he was actually serious. Even if he was "elaborating" a little, he did make the point that they do not take it lightly.

Perhaps this is just one of those things where you have to feel your way through but I would appreciate any thoughts/experiences you could share around when to switch from formal(polite) to informal.

As we say in English, "thanks in advance".

When my husband (who is Cuban)as a teenager, he addressed one of his Aunt's friends using the "tu" informal as opposed to "usted," he was pretty severely warned by his aunt to ALWAYS use the formal when talking to adults or her friends and not to go to the informal unless they do it first.