Formal vs informal you in translated emails: how to choose and check the right form

You write a short English email to a supplier in Lyon and run it through a translation tool. The English "you" doesn't say whether you and the reader are on formal or informal terms, but the French version has to use one form. The same goes for a message you speak in your own language and have written in another one. After a hand edit or a line pasted from an older email, a draft can even contain both forms.

Here you'll learn how to choose the form before you translate, which words change with it, and how to check a draft in German, French, and Spanish. Made-up examples show a mixed draft and its fix.

Why one English "you" has two correct translations

The Amazon Translate guide to formality gives a short example. "Are you sure?" has two correct German translations, formal Sind Sie sicher? and informal Bist du sicher?. The English sentence doesn't say which one fits. AWS also notes that its formality setting covers second-person pronouns and the verb forms that match them.

Some tools let you set the form before you translate. Amazon Translate offers this for a list of target languages. If your target language isn't on the list, or you leave the option out, no formality setting applies. DeepL also offers formal and informal options for certain target languages. As of October 2026, it lists Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Vietnamese.

A setting applies a choice you've already made. It can't tell whether your reader is a long-time colleague or a new client, so the decision stays with you.

How to choose the form before you translate

No single rule covers every country, company, and relationship. For workplaces in Germany, the Goethe-Institut says that whether coworkers use du or Sie depends on the company and the industry. The Académie française describes French tu as a sign of close familiarity and vous as the form for someone you aren't familiar with or treat as higher-ranking. That description doesn't settle which form your next email needs.

So look for signs in your own situation. This order is practical advice, not a grammar rule:

1. Follow your team's or company's rule if there is one.
2. Look at how the recipient addressed you in their last message written to you alone. Group emails can use plural forms that don't show formality, as the Spanish section below explains.
3. Look at an approved email your team sent to readers in the same setting and country.
4. If these signs conflict or you find none, ask the recipient or a colleague who knows the local habits.

Note the form next to the contact in your address book, so the next email starts from the same choice.

Formal isn't automatically the safe choice. A colleague who already writes tu to you may read a sudden vous as distance.

Which words change with the form you choose

The form shows up in pronouns, possessives, object forms, and verbs. This table lists common ones for three languages.

The Real Academia Española, or RAE, explains in its entry on usted that Spanish usted refers to the person you're addressing but takes third-person verbs and the possessive su. A formal request may contain no word for "you" at all, only a verb such as puede. The informal possessive tu has no accent, unlike the pronoun tú.

German capitals need a second look. Formal Sie, Ihr, and their inflected forms always take a capital. Informal du and dein are normally lowercase, but the official German spelling rules allow capitals for them in letters. A capital Du therefore doesn't mean formal address, so check the verb next to it. At the start of a sentence, a capital Ihr can also be the informal plural ihr.

Example: a mixed draft and two consistent versions

All examples below are made up and don't come from any particular tool.

The English original:

Thanks for your quick reply. Could you send me your updated quote by Thursday? If you have any questions, just let me know.

A German draft that mixes both forms:

Vielen Dank für deine schnelle Antwort. Könnten Sie mir Ihr aktualisiertes Angebot bis Donnerstag schicken? Wenn du Fragen hast, melde dich gern.

Fully formal:

Vielen Dank für Ihre schnelle Antwort. Könnten Sie mir Ihr aktualisiertes Angebot bis Donnerstag schicken? Wenn Sie Fragen haben, melden Sie sich gern.

Fully informal:

Vielen Dank für deine schnelle Antwort. Könntest du mir dein aktualisiertes Angebot bis Donnerstag schicken? Wenn du Fragen hast, melde dich gern.

In both fixes, a possessive and a verb change along with the pronoun. If you fix du and its verb in the last sentence but miss the request, you get Wenn Sie Fragen haben, melde dich gern. That's still mixed, because melde dich is informal.

A French draft with the same kind of mix:

Merci pour ta réponse rapide. Peux-tu m'envoyer votre devis mis à jour d'ici jeudi ? Si vous avez des questions, n'hésite pas à m'écrire.

The formal fix:

Merci pour votre réponse rapide. Pouvez-vous m'envoyer votre devis mis à jour d'ici jeudi ? Si vous avez des questions, n'hésitez pas à m'écrire.

The closing n'hésite pas contains no tu. Only the verb ending shows that it's informal, so a pronoun search won't catch it.

A single Spanish line can mix forms too. ¿Puedes enviarme su confirmación? pairs an informal verb with the formal possessive. It becomes ¿Puede enviarme su confirmación? in the formal form or ¿Puedes enviarme tu confirmación? in the informal one.

Regional Spanish forms, Japanese, and other languages

The same RAE entry notes that across Spanish-speaking America, and in western Andalusia and the Canary Islands, ustedes is the plural for both formal and informal address, so it doesn't show formality in a group email. The RAE's entry on vos adds that vos is the informal singular in Argentina, Paraguay, and part of Uruguay. In parts of Latin America where vos and tú coexist in educated usage, vos is usually informal and tú can mark a middle level of formality. For readers in these regions, ask before you treat tú as the informal choice.

Japanese doesn't work as another du and Sie pair. DeepL says its Japanese option sets polite or plain tone, which isn't the same as formal and informal. The option can change verb endings, pronouns, honorifics, and noun prefixes. A pronoun search can't check a Japanese email, so ask someone who writes Japanese business email.

DeepL's list also covers Dutch, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese, but this article gives no word lists for them. Build your own with a fluent colleague or a grammar reference.

How to check a translated email before you send it

Run this check on each translated draft, whichever tool wrote it:

1. Write down the form you chose before you open the draft.
2. Search the draft for each word of the other form, starting with the table above. Use whole-word search if your editor has it, so du doesn't match words such as Produkt.
3. Read every request and instruction. The verb alone can show the form. German Schick mir das Angebot is informal without any du, and French Envoie-moi le devis is informal without any tu.
4. Check possessives and object forms, such as German Ihr and dein or Ihnen and dir, French votre and ton, and Spanish su and tu.
5. Read the greeting and closing line too. They should fit the same relationship as the body. If your company has standard ones, use them.
6. Read the draft once on its own. Then compare it with your English or with what you meant, to make sure fixing the forms didn't change the meaning.

The check only works if you read the target language well. If you don't, ask a fluent colleague to read important emails before they go out.

Writing the email with Yappee and checking the form

With Yappee, you can record a message on your iPhone or Mac in your own language, choose the Email format, and have the email written in another of the more than 50 supported languages. They include German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Japanese. For a short note to a colleague, the Chat Message format works the same way.

Here's how the routine from this article fits in:

1. Decide the form before you record, so you know which one the draft should use.
2. Record the message, choose Email, and have it written in your reader's language.
3. Run the six-step check on the draft and fix any mixed forms.
4. Paste the email into your mail app and send it.

Your reader sees only the finished email, so check pronouns, verbs, requests, and the closing line against the form you chose before you send.