"Please call me by my first name" - Germany

Is there a respectful way to request somebody who you know quite well but with whom you are on "Sie" terms, to use your first name? I loathe always being called 'Frau xxx'. (It's just somehow, well, so frowsty!) I would not expect to use their first name in return or want to be over-familiar in any way. Or is it just a big cultural no-no until you've reached the "du" level of friendship?

I don't do "sie" and I am sure it pisses people off, but I wasn't raised that way. Just tell them to stop it with the sie and do the du. Seriously, they will do the sie until you tell them otherwise.

I usually say something along the lines
"ich bin kein deutscher, ich komme aus Kanada (or whatever country you are from), und wir sind nicht so abhängig vom formalitaten!"
I find that works- and I do not care if I made grammatical errors, its not my mother tongue and until all non english speakers can say 'v' and 'th' properly I will happily go along.

Whilst I find the Du and Sie thing unnecessarily complicated, I think that if the poster is talking about using Du in a business situation it could make things a bit complicated if for instance one colleague uses the Du form to start with, then others might feel left out, or that you have a special relationship with that one person.
It´s definitely an all or nothing job!
Where I work, the boss is absolutely forbidden to use "Du" when speaking to his "underlings", so we have found a happy compromise - he uses me nickname within the company with "Sie"... we are all happy now!

Eurovol, dude, you weren't raised that way, but you weren't raised here either. When in Rome and all that... Wouldn't it be a problem if some 'rupean moved to Tennissee and started saying, Mr. Vol, thou shallst bring the business proposal? Playing the foreigner card only goes over well the first 5 years or so.

Robinson - I've heard of that practice working well, and have had people propose it at work (but then the entire department decided to just move to "du")

Feierabend - You could just say "Nennen Sie mich einfach Jane"* (with the explanation that Frau Feierabend is your mother )Then you have the Sie in there (no implication of the du, however normally when the first name is addressed then that is an invitation to "du")

*your profile doesn't say if you are a man or woman

When I joined my current employer 11+ years ago it was made clear from the start that its "Du/<first name>" between all levels within the organisation (its the German GmbH within a global company...)

Being on a first name basis is the same thing as being at the "du" level of a relationship. If you want them to address you in the informal you can do one of two things:

Introdouce yourself using your firstname only.
When they call you Frau X, stop them and just say "Sally" (or whatever)

They'll get the message. You might want to read a short article I wrote on this: http://german-way.com/blog/2009/02/21/you-...u-sie-question/

In short, some people will readily accept your wish, some may be a little uncomfortable with it.

Why even use names at all? Seriously. If it's someone you see every day at work, repeated use of their name shows either that you're a bit thick and/or you're being patronizing.

Along with "didn't your mother teach you that it's impolite to stare", it should be our mission to introduce "that's my name, don't wear it out" into common parlance.

I literally have five identical-looking guys in my office named "Andreas", and since I can't tell most German apart anyway, trying to use their first names would be about as useful as using "Mr. Kim" in Korea where pretty much everyone has one of four last names. If you're standing in front of someone wagging your gums at them, they should get the hint that you're talking to them and not someone else.

I did this when I worked for a big German multinational, got my boss to call me by my first name, other people picked up on it and called me by my first name without asking me or offering their first names and I still had to call the Herr this or that. It really pissed me off. I recommend staying with Herr/Frau X (your name) and doing it the German way, it really is the best to do what all the others are doing. When you get to know people very well and it is du then it means something.

I have come across a few occasions where people would use my first name and still use the Sie, it's perfectly acceptable and might be a good compromise here.

Herr Beggs!

"Herr Beggs ist mein Fater, mein name ist Derek"

Reminds me of my flatmate (a German) telling me about his boss.

She comes into his office room and starts like "why did you not send this report, that report". No good morning, nothing.

He: 'Guten Morgen Frau xxx'.
she: 'es ist Doktor'.
he: 'Guten Morgen Frau Doktor xxx'.

So I would say that Frau Landes is my mother in law but she is dead.

This doesn't work so well for married folks who have taken on their spouse's family name.

Even better... "sorry, but Frau Landes is dead. My name is fraufruit."

my car has those.

we've a colleague called Herr Lipp which always makes me think of 'allo 'allo.

Does he have a dog named "Mark"?

LOL, Moonboot, it took a minute to work that out but thats great.

Tanja has a name badge at work which read T Beggs. I kept asking her Tetleys or PG tips.

This really did go over well? No long lectures about how things are different in Germany and how you should 'anpassen'? Not even 'Zis is Germany. Ve don't 'du' here'?

If the person in question has at least basic knowledge of the english language, tell him/her the following sentence the next time:
"You can say you to me!"

Has nobody else experienced the curious hybrid of forename plus Sie? It's used on TV as a translation all the time.

I've also experienced it first hand from colleagues fitting the criteria (1) "of a certain age" (2) not miles above me in the organisation and (3) have dealings with me about once a month.

It confuses the hell out of me, because in my head, Sie -> Mr Surname (which I'm comfortable with) and Du -> Forename (which I'm more comfortable with). Being Mr Forename (in most countries in an easterly direction) I find quite funny, but in a cute way. But any German who tries just the Surname route with me gets short shrift... they call me MISTER grampus

Anyway, you can say thou to me

Quite honestly, they can call me anything, so long as it isn´t rude!

So far I have five or six variations that I answer to - the main thing is communication!

It's not that easy. First of all, the English "you" doesn't mean "du" in German. Not at all! It all depends on the social relationship. When your English boss says "'you" to you you can be sure it's the formal "Sie" in German...
If you are sure you are close enough to the person you could offer her/him:

"Sie dürfen mich gerne "John/Debbie" nennen."

Not quite the same as: Sie koennen mich gerne haben (du form: Du kannst mich gerne haben)

Like DDBug, I also sometimes say "Mrs Jones is my mother". (Although DDBug and I don't share a mother I wish to point out.)

Anyway, with two of my bosses, I called them Dr or Frau X and they called me M... and we all used Sie with each other.

I really like the fact that there is a Sie and a du form. As a woman, it's useful. Some creep on holiday once in Spain hit on me and but after 3 days of me calling him Sie and keeping him at arm's length, he also reverted to Sie and left me alone. Bliss.

Also, the Sie form creates a distance that is far from pally. If you're on 'Du' terms with someone, there is more chance of them wheedling until you do something for them. There is more of an emotional bond maybe. Sie... much easier to say 'no' with that.

And grammatically speaking, Sie is a lot easier as it's the same form as the infinitive. No need to learn irregular verb forms for the du and er/sie/es form (e.g. 'sprechen' - ich spreche, du sprichst, er spricht, wir/Sie/sie sprechen)

Yeh, I've turned my (German) ex (and his meddling mates) back from "du" to "Sie" in order to send a message. Another German friend said he'd never heard of anyone doing that before, the ex remains "du" .

I met herself's parents for the first time there recently.
Introductions at the door, he uses second name (no Herr) and I instinctivly reply with my first name.
I used Sie the whole time (as I thought necessary) but they called me Du the whole time.
Really confused me.
I would have imagined it would have been Sie with us both until the parents say "call me Du" etc.

I have no problem with being Sie'd, and I like to be on equal footing with everyone.
I'm no kid so it really bothered me when i was being Du'zd while using Sie.
But they were really nice people, got on well, so I could not attribute it to not getting on with me or anything.

Is this normal??? If so then it would not bother me so much.
I reckon I should have used my second name when he did.
What gives?

The use of Sie and Du changed a lot in Germany since the guide books were written a few decades ago :-)

Some rules which apply in my opinion to at least 99% of all situations, though there might be some special cases in companies (though I actually never encountered them):

1.) If someone uses the first name, it also means Du. There's the very curious contruct of Sie and first name, but that's very 1950 or posh country club. Not used by normal people.
2.) The use of Du and First name always goes both ways. The only exception are children.
3.) Going from Sie to Du might have been a big thing a few decades ago. By now it's normally done in business environment by saying something as "By the way, I'm Hans." The other one says, "I'm Peter." and that's it. It's a little tricky who initiates the Du relationshsip but with similar age and status it's no big thing. In a private environment, it's much less formal, at least for people under 60. If you meet people at a party, it's always Du.
4.) If someone adresses you with the first name or Du, he expects exactly the same. No invitation for the use of Du or first name needed. If you answer with Sie and last name, it basically means that you don't want the informal relationship.

If you come from a country where the use of first name is common, you can be pushy with the use of it in Germany and most Germans won't mind. But keep in mind that the use of Du and first name results for Germans in a relationship which is kind of informal and equal. Some US managers have in my opinion a problem with that in Germany since they use first name but still expect the use of hierarchy and formality.

Jonny: Ask her whether her parents are extremely formal, but my best guess is that they expected that you use Du and put your repeated use of Sie down to difficulties with speaking German.

The grampusTM tick-box evaluation of whether to dare to do the du...

Older v Younger
Female v Male
Senior v Junior (hierarchy)
Native German/Austrian/Swiss v German as a 2[sup]nd[/sup] language

So the worst case scenario for me is a German-born woman manager over 40! Deffo wait for the invitation in this instance!

If I get 3 out of 4, I'll consider it: if they are business contacts from overseas who prefer German as their second language, I'm more happy forcing the "British" culture upon them

But more often than not, my view is "It's your culture therefore your decision/responsibility/problem!"

feierabend:


"Wir können uns auch Duzen." would be a friendly way to ask. Followed by a self-introductory "feierabend" with a smile. Shake hands may follow.

More formal: "Darf ich Ihnen das Du anbieten? Ich bin Feierabend"

"Du" goes usually with the use of the first name.

In a family you might ask even "Wollen wir Brüderschaft trinken" which is followed by a drink (linking arms), maybe a kiss.

As it was explained to me (and this is assuming that you are indeed younger than herself's parents) by using the Du form with you then they were implicitly inviting you to address them with Du.

I've observed that Germans often use "Sie" pointedly in "customer service" situations here in as close as the locals get to sarcasm, because they're really using the formal address form in an insulting fashion (which unsurprisingly comes quite naturally to them in this, The Land That Manners Forgot).

I find that using Sie with everyone all the time provides an excellent opportunity to underscore how routinely hard they are on foreigners. If the parents-in-law/people at work ask why you're using the Sie form, you can reply that that's how you were taught to communicate with those with whom one maintains an arms-length relationship.

As they say down on the farm, don't name your pig.

Thanks for all your replies, peeps!
(Think I will stay out of trouble and resign myself to being Frau Feierabend)