That’s to say that if you’re talking to your boss, professor, somebody who is considerably older than you or somebody you’ve just met, you address them with vous, while you use tu to address friends, family members and anyone else you have a close personal relationship with. The tricky thing is that sometimes it’s unclear which one is appropriate. One of the professors in my exchange program (a Frenchman), for instance, took a very personable attitude toward me and my fellow students, giving us his cell phone number for when we had questions, and having long one-on-one conversations with several students outside of class. This led some of my peers to think that it would be appropriate to address him with tu – which provoked a negative reaction from him, as it would seem he still expected to be addressed by vous. How confusing.
In any case, I feel that I’ve made considerable progress this fall in my speaking ability. Learning a language out of a textbook is one thing – actually living in a language is quite another. I certainly still have trouble understanding native speakers, especially when they speak fast, but I definitely understand more now than I did at the beginning of the semester. I find that encouraging.
