"tu" vs "ud"
Can someone please tell me if it is proper for say a sixty year old person to address a 20 year oid stranger by "tu"? I apoligize if this has been answered already. I did not find it.
6 Answers
Tú is formal and Ud. is formal. ( A form of respect. Ex: when addressing your teacher you would use ud. your friend you would use tú. )
Yes either can be used, but usually an older person would use Tú because the other person is younger than them. Switched around Ud. is proper for someone younger to address someone older.
usted
Yes it is formal, but learning when to use it takes exposure within the culture since it is a cultural element that appears in language.
It´s more than just a matter of age difference, ie: If a 20-year old bank teller were handling my transaction, I would still use Ud. even my being much older because this is prefessional situation.
In the situation of prefessor and university student, yes, it could be either way depending on the relationship between the two people, but if a professor becomes close to students it can sometimes become difficult to maintain the authority level and distance desired so I would personally use Ud. here too. This is much different than a teacher-highschool student relationship.
I think that asymmetric student-professor form of address is pretty common, at least least in the only 2 times I´ve been in a class (not a language class) of Spanish speakers taking some subject in Spanish. That´s not a very big data sample though.
In our gringo academic classes, the convention has been for prof-student interaction to be in Usted form, and student-student in Tú, so that we get used to hearing and using both. It´s an artificial environment, but pretty effective.
