Tú and Usted – A Formality You’d Better Not Ignore
Get localization right, from the bottom up
“Here’s our pet rabbit. Can you change its DNA for us?”
“Nice house of cards. Could you replace the red one in the bottom row with this green one?”
“Good job localizing the Web site. Can you change all instances of usted to tú?”
Has this ever happened to you? It’s happening with one client on a Web portal we’ll soon roll out in Latin American Spanish.
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In Spanish, there are two levels of address: formal (usted) and informal (tú). Historically, if you’re talking to the king or somebody whose business you want, you use formal address. If you’re talking to your friends or to a small animal, you use informal address.
A few years ago, this was a no-brainer in localization. Most software, Websites and marketing material still used usted because you’re talking to customers and you want to honor them. Trendy sites like AOL.com and terra.com used tú because they wanted to be your friend as quickly as possible.
NAFTA, the Web, immigration patterns and cross-border commerce have brought Mexico and the U.S. so close together that the old rules don’t apply as much anymore. Cell phone companies, auto dealers, even banks are using tú in customer-facing materials. There aren’t reliable rules anymore; the choice depends on the organization’s messaging.
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We started localization about five months ago, assuming usted. We dutifully created a glossary and asked for in-country review by the customer, a wireless network operator. The customer must have been too busy, so we received feedback from a business development manager along the way. The comments gave us some terminology preferences, but no mention of usted vs. tú.
Now the portal is up in Spanish, and the customer has finally begun to review it. New and changed text is coming back to us with tú. They haven’t asked us to change the DNA of the rabbit yet, but sooner or later the usted and tú fronts will collide and we’ll need to work it out.
The moral: You should have learned long ago to have your customers specify the region for the Spanish (or French or Arabic or Chinese…) they want. Remember to ask them about usted vs. tú as well.
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a localization project manager and consultant.
photo credit: bloomsberries