You formal / informal

You formal / informal
Message from maralife posted on 30-07-2014 at 16:12:36 (D | E | F)
Hello
In Persian, there are two different words for 'you'. One is used when you don't know someone well or you respect her because of her age, rank ... and one is used when you know someone well and used among friends.
Are there two words for 'you' in English too?
Sorry for using her instead of her/his. I read a sentence from a man recently he kept using his, him.

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Edited by lucile83 on 31-07-2014 09:35

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Re: You formal / informal from melmoth, posted on 30-07-2014 at 16:42:47 (D | E)
Hello Maralife,
In present-day English there's only one pronoun, 'you', which serves to address friends and relatives as well as strangers, irrespective of social hierarchy. There are other ways of conveying respect or familiarity. For instance, calling somebody by his/her first name is more or less equivalent to using the familiar form 'tu' in French. Historically 'you' is the 2nd person plural pronoun. There's an old 2nd person singular pronoun, thou, which one finds in Shakespeare's plays or in King James' Bible, for instance, but nowadays it is completely archaic, one doesn't use it (except in old-fashioned poetry, or to address God, or facetiously...).
Cheers.

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Re: You formal / informal from maralife, posted on 31-07-2014 at 05:18:05 (D | E)
Hello Melmoth,
Thank you a lot. I found it very useful.

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