Being less formal

[abcdefg]

#19 -- @Skylee, Your're right. It's done.

#20 -- @Kenny, That may be true, but is it often done?

[Kenny同志]

From my observation, yes.

[gato]

@Gato, apologies for missing your point.

No problem.

I have many friends here who are much younger than myself, many of them university students. The usual scenario is that the first time we meet, they may say 您 once or twice just to let me know they can be courteous. Then they soon revert to the more familiar 你 and we continue in that mode from then on, both spoken and written.

As carlo said, it could take years for people you meet to transition from 您 to 你 in Beijing and other northern areas. I have a tendency to revert to 你 myself.

I think it's more a matter of habit rather than a conscious atempt at being formal/informal, polite/less polite. Asking a northerner to use 你 with you might actually be somewhat of an imposition, as a northerner might find it awkward to use 你 with a mere acquaintance. The opposite could happen with a southerner.

[Guest realmayo]

Really interesting to hear that 您 is so common up north. It explains why, having lived further south, I've been surprised to hear lots more 您ing on TV than I'd hear in real life.

[Kenny同志]

I think it's more a matter of habit rather than a conscious atempt at being formal/informal, polite/less polite. Asking a northerner to use 你 with you might actually be somewhat of an imposition, as a northerner might find it awkward to use 你 with a mere acquaintance. The opposite could happen with a southerner.

I don't think so. 你 and 您 are quite different in Putonghua, for example, a well-mannered young man, no matter he's a southerner or northerner, would never be expected to use 你 to call a senior whom he meets for the first time, if he speaks in Putonghua, or even in many dialects, including 常德话.

[gato]

more a matter of habit rather than a conscious atempt at being formal/informal, polite/less polite. Asking a northerner to use 你 with you might actually be somewhat of an imposition,

I didn't put it in absolute terms. Just "more" and "somewhat". You are right about first meetings, but 3rd or 4th meetings may differ.

even in many dialects, including 常德话.

How do you say “您“ in 常德话?

[xuefang]

Many of the southern dialects (such as Shanghainese) don't have a 你/您 distinction, so if you were in the south, it's more common that people don't care about the distinction even when they speak Mandarin.

My teachers here in Guangzhou, even though they are from all over China, have told me that locals here don't use 您 and so it's not necessary for us to use it either. Sometimes I would like to be more polite, as in Finnish I would use a more polite word of "you" when speaking to older people, but I have stick with 你 because that's what everyone else is using.

[Kenny同志]

It's pronounced exactly the same as 您 in Putonghua.

[abcdefg]

Reading Kenny's post # 22, above, makes me think I should be using 您 with this lady instead of 你。Before I go overboard, I'll ask a few younger Kunming friends what they customarily do and what they would recommend. Just guessing from what I hear day to day, 您 does not seemed to be used all that much, especially not as much as in China's north.

[Kenny同志]

Reading Kenny's post # 22, above, makes me think I should be using 您 with this lady instead of 你

No, don’t use 您 with her. The facts that you have known her for quite some time and that you’re about twice her age would make your conversation very awkward if you do so because that would sound distant and way too formal. It would be less so, however, the other way around.

[Kenny同志]

If you prefer being called 你, you can tell her "其实，虽然我比你年长许多，但你用‘你’叫我我也不会介意. 我们认识了这么久，不用老您来您去的."

[abcdefg]

#30 and #31 -- Got it. Thanks.

[yhe2006]

How about prefacing 你别在用您叫我啦

with:

你太客气

?

This would tone down the converstion.

[abcdefg]

#33 -- I like that. Along the same lines, my local friends often tell me 别那么客气 if I thank them too much.