"tu" and "vous"

It drives me crazy – not just the extra conjugation but the slippery goalposts. There are only a few touchstones: “vous” for the bank manager and “tu” for children and close friends (though when a child ceases to be a child is a moot point).

If you join a club you’re likely to “tu” everyone instantly (and do the bise with them, even if a coachload). On a course involving any form of personal development, defences will be dropped and “tu” will be used. For this reason I often move to “tu” with shiatsu clients (though a psych/coach I’ve worked with from a client perspective maintains the “vous”, perhaps as she is an older generation).

For some, the more formal “vous” is considered necessary precisely because of its distancing effect. Several people I’ve spoken to recently “vous” their parents-in-law (waiting for the parents to make the move to "tu"). Observation confirms a more formal and cooler relationship than I would seek. My Berlitz boss has “vous”ed me for 3 years – but “tu”s his administrative colleagues. Said colleagues “tu” everyone.

Yesterday, a student with whom I have a close rapport asked me, Est-ce qu’on a le droit de se tutoyer? Weird that the awful “d” word, “droit”, was being used (how can an employer legislate something as personal as the language you use?), and that I was invited to arbitrate as a non-native. And even weirder to go against both our instincts and to have to say that this would be very unusual in the ultra formal Berlitz culture. We agreed, however, that we would "tu" – and then I felt embarrassed when I was talking with her in front of Berlitz colleagues to be revealing I had somehow broken the code. So I slipped in and out of “vous”, clumsily betraying everyone in the process.

Lesson: don’t speak French during lessons!

And, dear France, in the age of email and tweeting, would a simplification of the language be appropriate? My vote is to put a sock in “vous”…