Register: u or jij?
Register: u or jij?
Dutch forces a choice English abandoned in the seventeenth century: every time you address someone you commit to u or jij. The Netherlands leans informal, but the boundaries are subtle and getting them wrong is socially audible.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
u takes third-person singular verb forms
U bent, u hebt (or u heeft), u kunt, u wilt
you are, you have, you can, you want
u is grammatically singular and takes the same verb form as hij or zij, which is why u kunt and u wilt look irregular next to jij kunt and jij wilt. With hebben, both u hebt and u heeft are correct, with u heeft slightly more formal. The possessive is uw, and the object form is also u — there is no separate word.
Dutch usage is more informal than the pronoun system suggests
Zeg maar je. / Mag ik je tutoyeren?
Just call me 'je'. / May I use the informal form?
In the Netherlands je is the default among colleagues, in shops, and with anyone under about fifty, while u is kept for the elderly, officials, doctors and formal correspondence. The verb tutoyeren means 'to address informally', and Zeg maar je is the standard invitation to drop u. There is no ritual for going the other way — switching back to u signals distance or displeasure.
jullie, u as plural, and the archaic gij
jullie hebben / u hebt (plural) / gij hebt
you have (plural informal) / you have (plural formal) / thou hast
The informal plural is jullie, with the possessive jullie or jouw ... allemaal in speech. Formal plural is simply u again, since u covers both numbers. The old second-person gij survives in older texts, in fixed religious language, and as an everyday form in Flemish speech — where ge and gij are perfectly current rather than archaic.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- you (formal)
- English
- your (formal)
- English
- you (informal)
- English
- your (informal)
- English
- you (plural informal)
- English
- to address informally
- English
- Just use 'je'
- English
- polite
- English
- formal
- English
- informal
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