A Follow-Up to my "You" Video (Inspired by Your Comments!)

追加: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]It's It's the video.

[00:00:03]Kiero entender introducción en español para practicar practicar hablar porque no tengo no voy a tener a tener muchas oportunidades en estas en esta semana.

[00:00:23]Ah, oportunidad muchas oportunidades de practicar hablar español porque tengo tengo tres ex- exámenes exámenes ah, de biología.

[00:00:38]Entonces, ah, tengo que tengo que trabajar y estudiar mucho en la biblioteca, pero específicamente estudiar biología.

[00:00:50]Um, entonces tengo menos tiempo que normal que normal para practicar español.

[00:01:00]Entonces bienvenidos a este video.

[00:01:04]Switch to English. I need to make a follow-up to my video about you to my video about the word you because there were quite a few there were quite a few interesting things that I missed. Some things that I forgot to mention that I definitely should have mentioned and some things that I didn't know yet that I now know thanks to the comments and a bit of research. Uh, so I'd like to talk about those things with regard to each of the languages I mentioned in those videos. And also, thank you very much to the surprisingly many people who commented about other languages. I was really pleasantly surprised. So I had comments about like the Polish language, Icelandic, uh, Czech and Slovak, uh, Japanese, I believe, and several others, all of which were really cool and fascinating to learn about. Thank you so much. So, firstly, well, I have now learned that "chdi", which I mentioned in that video and I said I wasn't sure if it was an intermediate between "ch" and "t" or just a dialect form, it's a dialect form. It's from North Wales specifically, which explains why I used to hear it so much. Most of my primary school and secondary school Welsh teachers were from the Lleyn or Arfon.

[00:02:20]So, they were all just using it cuz it's their dialect and I have clearly picked it up as well. But, in terms of usage, according to the comments and a bit of research that I've done on like Welsh language forums, it's pretty much equivalent to "ti".

[00:02:35]Secondly, French. I was really pleasantly surprised to get a comment from a French person saying that my explanation was exactly correct. That was honestly the last thing I expected to be right about in that video. So, um merci beaucoup.

[00:02:50]But, there is still something that I didn't mention that is relevant to all five languages I talked about, including French. So, I'll get to that at the end.

[00:02:59]Next, German.

[00:03:00]I There were a couple of things that I could have mentioned with regards to German and maybe should have.

[00:03:06]Perhaps the most obvious is the royal "Ihr". So, what I described as the the plural informal pronoun "Ihr", it is the plural informal when written with a lower case "I", but it can also be written with an upper case "I", a capital "I", and then it becomes and and used to refer to a single person. And then it suddenly becomes this like royal this royal you, the most formal and respectful you of all. I first came across this when I was reading Die Nibelungen last year, which is like uh a really important part of like the German literary canon. It's like a a collection of tales about these like kings and queens of like of um tribes of old. I apologize to any Germans if I've described that wrong.

[00:03:57]But, in Die Nibelungen, I did notice that Ihr is used as a singular pronoun with a capital I to refer to like kings and queens, and I was like, "Oh, that's interesting."

[00:04:09]That must be a a usage I haven't come across before.

[00:04:12]And indeed, I should have mentioned that in the video as several comments rightly pointed out.

[00:04:17]I also failed to mention the capitalized du, which is where the singular informal pronoun du can be written with a capital D, similar to how the formal pronoun Sie is always capitalized.

[00:04:31]And the capitalized partly why I didn't mention the capitalized du is because it's not 100% consistent what it actually signifies and where it's actually used.

[00:04:44]I know some that like some explanations will say, "Oh, so it's it's used in like letters and emails." But, my understanding as a obviously a non-expert, but my understanding is that it's kind of complicated. It varies. It has varied over time, and there's no official consensus on when or whether you should use the capitalized du and what connotations it actually has. In my replies to a couple of comments, I shouted out a brilliant video by the YouTuber Rob Words, um who talked about how how the the words for you in German have changed over time and how their usage and implications have changed. But yes, the only fair summary would probably be that capitalized du implies a certain kind of intermediate level of of politeness and respect without the the distance and formality that Sie can imply.

[00:05:44]But, as I said, that's very much an over generalization and that is the point I'll be coming to at the end after I've talked about all of the languages. Next, English. Now, I said that English only has one word for you and I stand by that in terms of modern standard English does only have one word for you. But, I probably should have mentioned that many many dialects of English have other words for plural you and that English did have multiple words for you in the past. In fact, one of those points, the point about dialects like for example y'all in the US or youse as a plural you in uh Ireland and I think also in parts of the UK. Like I'm fairly sure I've heard Scousers say like I did you see what Mo Salah said about Danny Ings last night, you know, that kind of thing. Um >> [laughter] >> I did actually mention those two examples when I was recording the last video, but my explanation ended up being a bit rambly and I didn't feel like it was exactly relevant to the topic of like modern standard varieties of the languages I was talking about, but in hindsight it clearly was relevant and it's certainly an interesting topic. Um let me know if you have any different regional varieties for plural you besides y'all and youse.

[00:07:05]I think in Pennsylvania they say yinz or something.

[00:07:10]Anyway, the other point was that English did have multiple words for you in the past.

[00:07:16]As in standard English did.

[00:07:18]You and thou and thee. If I remember rightly, I hope I'm not mixing this up.

[00:07:23]You was actually the formal uh the formal and plural while thou was the singular informal. And one comment actually said thou was directly descended from du in German. Whereas you, I think, is related to vous, the French.

[00:07:42]I apologize if I misinterpreted your comment, but it's certainly it's certainly interesting that um I I can't remember what I said in that video, but I certainly believe it.

[00:07:54]English should have multiple should have a plural you in in modern standard English. I believe it's a feature that is useful in a language. It's a really useful distinction to make. And I think the fact that all the dialects keep coming up with their own words for plural you shows how badly they need one. So, either we should all start adopting y'all or youse, or we should bring back bring back the value distinction. Finally, Spanish.

[00:08:19]Unsurprisingly, this was the language where I missed out the most interesting information. Uh probably because it's the language I know least about. Well, one of the languages I know less about out of the five I was talking about.

[00:08:32]Firstly, I forgot to mention vosotros.

[00:08:34]That's 100% on me. I just forgot.

[00:08:37]Uh in my So, the vosotros and vosotras are the two different forms of the informal plural you used in Spain. Whereas I only mentioned vosotros.

[00:08:49]Uh vosotras is used when it's a plural group of women.

[00:08:53]And in my partial defense, I haven't listened to or spoken much like Spanish from Spain, if that makes sense.

[00:09:02]So, the Spanish forms are just kind of less in my consciousness, but I still should have mentioned it.

[00:09:08]Another thing that This is This is something that I just genuinely [music] didn't know, and I'm really interested and glad that the comments have informed me about this, is that there's a lot more diversity in how the different uh pronouns that are used in Latin America.

[00:09:22]So, tú, vos, usted, and ustedes.

[00:09:25]In what formality level they have and in what context they're used. There's a lot more variety in terms of region to region than I actually realized.

[00:09:35]So, while it's true that vos in Argentina, at least most of Argentina, is basically equivalent to tú in Spain, in other parts of Latin America, vos is the formal, and according to one comment, even a really like unusual counterintuitive combination like usted being the informal and vos being the formal, probably is used in like at least one random village somewhere.

[00:09:58]That's just how much how much diversity there is in terms of the different formality levels. I'm sure if I try to give any more any more specific like information than that, I will be digging myself an even bigger hole by getting more things wrong, and I'll have to make a third follow-up video. So, that's just the point I wanted to make that I gathered from the comments. It's it's more diverse than I realized. The point I said I was going to come back to that's relevant to all the languages is I didn't really talk about what it means to be formal or informal in that video.

[00:10:30]Like, it's all very well classifying pronouns as this is the formal, this is the informal, this is the plural, whatever. But, what does formal and informal actually mean? The examples I gave in that video, like I I tended to say quite general things like oh, if you're talking to your boss, but even that is very much an oversimplification because as one comment helpfully pointed out, in uh German and French-speaking societies, and I'm sure this is true in in other languages as well, like Spanish, you get some workplaces where it's completely normal to use du or tu, the informal pronouns, with your boss.

[00:11:08]And I actually was in one of these environments um last year when I was doing my placement in Germany. Uh I was in a lab, and in in the field of research of like scientific labs, it's completely normal to use du with with the head of your lab. And it would be weird, if anything, to use usted because you're on a first-name basis with them. So, in reality, the question of when you use the informal and formal. Now, I'm not qualified to speak in any detail on this in French or Spanish, but I would assume a general statement you can make about all of them is it varies between regions, it varies between individual preferences, and it has varied over time. A general trend I've noticed is the formal ones tend to become less used over time.

[00:11:53]Someone said that "vous" is quite rarely used as a formal singular pronoun in French anymore, and it's mostly just for plurals." Which is really interesting. I didn't know that. So, basically, if you want to know when to use like the correct formal and informal pronouns in the language you're learning, the only way to be sure is just to live long enough there to get a feel for it. I feel like generally in Germany, by the end of my placement year, I had a decent feel for when is like most appropriate. But even then, my strategy in in Germany is to on the side of "Sie" if I'm ever unsure about it, and then wait till the other person, you know, if they say "Können Sie mich gerne duzen?" or if they just start using "du" with me, then I know it's okay. However, I fear that might not be the best strategy if I ever move to like a Spanish-speaking country, because apparently some people, especially like younger people or middle-aged people, can be quite offended if you call them "usted" because they think it implies that you think they're old. So, maybe "usted" as a kind of default option isn't as wise as "Sie" in German.

[00:12:59]That makes me a little bit nervous, because I also don't want to assume that "vos" or "tú" is okay, and then offend people by not being formal and respectful enough. So, let me know if there's a good like default strategy of which pronoun to use in Spanish-speaking countries. I'd be very grateful. Anyway, thank you very much for all the comments.

[00:13:17]Um they were so informative and educational and inspiring that I have made a follow-up.

[00:13:23]So, I hope you enjoyed this, and thank you for watching.