How do Spanish-speaking soldiers address officers? “Sí Señor” and/or “Sí Señora”? Do French-speaking soldiers say “Oui Monsieur” and/or “Oui Madame”? What about in languages that don’t have direct equivalents to “Sir” and “Ma’am” (such as Japanese)?
In Norwegian you use the officer’s title. “Yes, lieutenant!”
Does Norwegian have an equivalent to “Sir” and/or “Ma’am”?
Don’t know exactly about Norwegian, but I suppose it is the same as in Swedish. You could say “Herrn” [Mister] and “Frun” [Mrs] (or “Fröken” [Miss]), but that would sound very archaic.
ETA And it also would sound very un-military.
Same thing in French, you use the title of the officer adressing you. There’s no Sir thing, you aint his butler.
That would explain all the instances of “Oui, mon capitaine!” in WW2 movies.
[stereotypical French actor in English language movie]
“Oui, mon capitaine”
[/stereotype]
“Sí, mi [insert grade here]”, both for officers and non-coms; gendered forms to be used where applicable (not all grades have gender differentiation).
Note that “sí, mi jefe” or “sí, mi presidente” are used only by foreign writers - it’s not real Spanish; the real Spanish for those two would be “sí, jefe” and “sí, señor Presidente” (you could also address either one by (nick)name*). The “yes, my [grade]” is restricted to military grades.
- I’m not talking about a cutesy name, but cases like calling the current president of Spain “Mr Zapatero” - that’s his second lastname so it’s not how someone would normally be adressed - or “ZP” - the initials of the slogan for the campaign in which he got first elected (“Zapatero Presidente”). Someone whose slogan was “Zapatero Presidente” sure can’t complain if people call him by the name he used!
In the Israeli army, the standard word is “commander”.
To anyone who is, well, your commander–(i.e. your boss,) no matter which rank…you say “yes, commander”.
(But only in boot camp…after that, you can often just use first names like in any other job.)
This goes for Norwegian as well.
While I’ve never been in the armed forces, I am quite certain that it’s the same in Germany.
Beyond the general “commander”, officers are also occasionally referred to by their position, rather than their rank; or more specifically, by an abbreviation of their position. For instance, a battalion commander (Mefaked Gedud) would be addressed as Ha-MGD(pronounced “Magad”); a platoon commander (Mefaked Machlaka) would be address as *Ha-MM *(pronounced “Mem-Mem”). Israeli soldiers consider an officer’s position far more important than his or her rank.
Of course, as **chappachula **noted, most of the IDF is on a first-name basis.
I think it’s slightly more formal in German, including a “Herr” - “Jawohl, Herr Kommandant”.
Absolutely. My mistake, sorry.
I ran into a young Scotsman, who had just left military service, yesterday and he kept on calling me Sir against my protests on the grounds that I 1) am older, 2) have grey hair and 3) have a beard.
It’s not so much that it’s formal (although it is), it’s that military and other titles don’t replace your Mr. or Mrs. title. In America, someone who becomes a doctor of medicine goes from being called Mr. Smith to Dr. Smith. In Germany, that same man would go from Herr Schmidt to Herr Doktor Schmidt, and a woman would go from Frau Schmidt to Frau Doktor Schmidt.
Really? It would seem really odd to me to say (in Hebrew) the equivalent of, “Yes, Bob,” when talking to an officer.
In the Canadian forces, “Monsieur” and “Madame” are the accepted ways of addressing officers in French. I believe this practice was adopted from the British tradition, but, nonetheless, it’s done “in French.”
That’s how it works. My commander, when I was in regular IDF, was addressed as “Micky”. My base commander was addressed as “Eitan” (his first name).
In reserves, it is even more relaxed.
More relaxed? “Sure, schlamazl!”?
Hm. Do members of the IDF interact much with any US armed forces? How does that go over?