On Mon, 2006-07-31 at 17:02 -0300, Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
> Very odd indeed, once you start listening to it with a "grammar ear". I
> never liked it. Whenever reasonably possible, I use the more informal "du"
> (2nd person singular for normal people :)

Hehe, well, I'm an english as a first language person, and my limited
knowledge of German is basically from hearing my parents talk as I grew
up.

I do find your comment interesting though. I've never liked using "sie",
it just "sounds" a little off to me. But I've been told that you should
NEVER use "du", except for family and close friends. What's you're
opinion on using "du"? Would addressing a waiter with "du" be a huge
taboo to you?

As a concept this sort of thing is difficult for me. English is very
"neutral" in many ways. You address everybody as "you". A window isn't
female, a house isn't male, everything is neuter. Learning french in
school was always very difficult for me since there were so many things
like this which didn't seem to have any reason for being. Whether a noun
was female or male seemed to be decided based on the flip of a hat
(although an 'e' at the end often meant female, this wasn't a hard rule
that could be relied on). German adds to my confusion by adding "neuter"
to the mix.

Thanks, TTYL

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