German translation: Sie or du?

For German translation, decide how you address the recipient before translating. Formal Sie and informal singular du affect pronouns, possessives, and verb forms throughout the message. Replacing one word is not enough. Easy Write offers explicit formal and informal translation choices so you can make that decision while working on your draft.

Version check, 23 October 2026: the current release is Easy Write 2.0, available as a signed, notarized DMG through the official releases. This guide uses the 2.0 Bar for explicit tone choices and labels older 1.x shortcuts as legacy. Check your installed version before relying on a remembered key combination.

What formal and informal actually change

English “you” leaves several German choices unspecified. Are you addressing one person informally, several people informally, or using formal address? Your intended relationship supplies information the English sentence may not contain.

These illustrative examples are not recorded app outputs or quality benchmarks:

Notice können becoming kannst, Ihnen becoming dir, and Ihr becoming dein. Other cases and noun genders change endings again. A find-and-replace operation on Sie will leave many of these relationships wrong.

The dictionary describes Sie as formal address, including address to one or several people, and du as second-person singular. Formal address uses capitalized Sie, Ihnen, and Ihr with the appropriate endings. Informal du is normally lowercase; Duden notes that letters may also capitalize it. A capital Du alone therefore does not make a message formal.

Do not confuse informal plural ihr with formal Ihr

If “you” means an informal group, the subject is ihr, not du. Duden identifies this as second-person plural. Compare these authored illustrations:

• One person: “Habt ihr Zeit?” would address the wrong number; use “Hast du Zeit?”
• Several people informally: “Habt ihr Zeit?”
• Formal address to one or more people: “Haben Sie Zeit?”

Lowercase ihr also has other grammatical uses, so read the whole sentence. Formal possessive Ihr in “Ihr Entwurf” and the informal plural subject ihr in “ihr habt” are different roles. Easy Write's German informal instruction explicitly favors singular du. Do not assume that shortcut handles an informal group correctly; review plural address separately.

Translate a German email with Easy Write 2.0

Use an explicit register choice rather than expecting a shortcut to infer your relationship with the recipient. The repository documentation provides further app context:

1. Open Easy Write's menu-bar Settings and choose German as the target writing language.
2. Write a short draft that clearly states the request and recipient context.
3. Select the complete passage you want translated.
4. Press Option–Command–K to open the Bar, choose German and formal or informal tone, then inspect the translation before replacing the draft.
5. Check the greeting, pronouns, verb endings, names, and factual details before sending.

The direct Option–Command–T shortcut in 2.0 is two-way Translate with your current settings, not a dedicated formal command. When the recipient relationship is the reason you are translating, choose formal or informal explicitly in the Bar. Shortcuts can be customized, so check Settings → Shortcuts if a binding does something else.

For an incoming message you want to understand, Option–Command–E normally reads into your configured home language in a popup. If the selection already reliably matches home, it switches to your target writing language, with English as a fallback when both settings match. This does not require changing the sender's text.

Legacy 1.x shortcuts: Option–Command–T was formal translation, Option–Command–I informal, Option–Command–P plain translation preserving natural tone, and Option–Command–E read into English. These older meanings are not the 2.0 shortcut map.

A practical review before sending

Use a small checklist instead of trusting a fluent-looking result:

1. Recipient: Is this one person or a group? Does the chosen address match the existing conversation or agreed style?
2. Consistency: Does the draft maintain Sie/Ihnen/Ihr or du/dir/dein throughout, with matching verbs?
3. Meaning: Are the sender and recipient still doing the same things? Has a request become a promise?
4. Details: Are dates, amounts, product names, attachments, and negations preserved?
5. Scope: Did the translation keep your actual message rather than adding reasons, commitments, or claims?

There is no universal etiquette rule that every workplace, age group, or industry follows. An existing exchange, explicit preference, or organizational style guide is more useful than treating “professional” as a synonym for Sie. If the choice is unclear, clarify it with the recipient or someone who knows the context.

Remembered settings and what other tools already do

In Easy Write 2.0, the Bar lets you select a tone, and per-app memory can remember the last language and tone used there. Remembered settings are a convenience: one Mail window can contain both a formal customer email and an informal message to a friend. Check the actual recipient each time. Language detection and remembered preferences cannot resolve every ambiguous passage or determine which form of address is appropriate.

Easy Write is not the only tool with register controls. DeepL documents formal and informal translation for its listed Pro platforms. Easy Write's useful proposition is its on-device Mac workflow and explicit choices, rather than an exclusive invention of formality-aware translation.

Try the workflow first on a disposable sentence. For hardware, permissions, or model readiness, follow the setup guide. For selection and read-mode details, use the Mac translation guide.