Thread: Usage of вы or ты?

I felt silly to keep saying вы and simply dropped it with several people.

How did they address you?

Originally Posted by Marcus

How did they address you?

Even if an old lady says "ты" to you, you cannot say "ты" to her anyway.

Thanks Lena. Well, there is nothing to be done, I have already made the mistake.

Originally Posted by Marcus

How did they address you?

The thing was, I was not sure --- I personally don't care which one people use, in any language. So I absolutely was not paying attention to it, instead I was focussed on trying to understand what they were saying.

I was very polite in every other respect though, so hopefully they understand that I respect them and that I was just not familiar with the etiquette. But with such things, people tend to forget cultural differences and just take offense.

Basically the people in question where people I met at this "sanatorium" in Belarus.
It was a woman a few years older than me (not a problem with her, I am sure), a couple also older than me but not very old - late forties, I'd say. Super nice Russians from Murmansk. It's possible that the husband thought it was rude. Plus some women in their 50s and 60s. I think I was sensible enough to stick with "вы" with them, but I was really unsure about it.

I went to some dances, went walking and generally hung out with these people. For me, the polite form is something to use at work, or with some really important or very old person. To use it with people you socialise with is pretentious and rather silly in Swedish. I thought - oh Russians are cool and relaxed, they probably are not as stiff with stuff like this as Germans etc.... Seems I was mistaken.

"может, перейдём на ты?"

Ok I will use that from now. It sounds really old fashioned to me.... But if that is the practice I will definitely do it.

Originally Posted by Hanna

"может, перейдём на ты?"

Ok I will use that from now. It sounds really old fashioned to me.... But if that is the practice I will definitely do it.

Haha, this phrase sounds not too polite for me either. I usually say something like "Не против, если на "ты"?" or so.

Once again I'm learning in Hanna's wake. I'm glad you asked this.

If it's any consellation (probably not), I've been rude with this in the past, without really realizing it.. First I always said "вы ", but after a couple of times of being told to stop being so formal, i got used to ты and fell into a bad habit of using it all the time. With strangers, online and such.. probably offended whole hosts of people.. and why? Same old mindset - I came with my pre-conceived notions of what is proper.. =) Thanks for the lesson friends..