German - French Dictionary
/duː/
Du is the informal German second-person pronoun meaning "you". It translates to French tu (informal) or vous (formal), depending on context.
| # | Type | German | French |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | pronoun | du subject pronoun: the person being addressed | tu |
| 2 | pronoun | du subject pronoun: the person being addressed | vous |
| 3 | pronoun | du singular nominative form of you | tu |
| 4 | determiner | du the individual or group spoken/written to | tu |
| 5 | determiner | du the individual or group spoken/written to | vous |
| 6 | determiner | du used before epithets for emphasis | espèce de |
| 7 | determiner | du used before epithets for emphasis | bande de |
Du bist mein bester Freund.
Tu es mon meilleur ami.
Kennst du meine Schwester?
Connais-tu ma sœur?
Du Idiot!
Espèce d'idiot!
Du is informal and used for friends, family, and peers; it is never capitalized in the middle of a sentence. When translating to French, use tu for informal settings and vous for formal or plural contexts. English learners must remember that German has no single equivalent to English "you"—the choice between du and Sie (formal) fundamentally changes the tone.
Source: Wiktionary · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Audio: Wikimedia Commons