I don’t think it’s just German. When I started learning Russian, 95% of what I was taught was on вы (plural/formal you). When you’re a beginner you really lean on stock phrases and bits you learned in class, so when I moved to Kharkov everything I said was formal for about six months. It took a year before I really stopped speaking to children or pets formally. It makes sense I guess, if you’re not sure formal is probably safer than informal (although speaking to someone formally when you should be speaking informally can also be insulting.)
It’s not just knowing when to use formal/informal - native speakers often forget this but in languages with verbs that conjugate, a beginner learner may not be as good with the Du conjugations as they are with Sie. Again, when you are just starting with the language or you’re not confident you lean on repeating things you’ve learned and if you were taught Sie then that’s what you do.
> It makes sense I guess, if you’re not sure formal is probably safer than informal (although speaking to someone formally when you should be speaking informally can also be insulting.)
You get lots of leeway on the latter as a foreigner.
Very true, however I’ve noticed in pretty much every culture speaking the lingua franca poorly often means you are treated nicely but not very seriously.
It’s not just knowing when to use formal/informal - native speakers often forget this but in languages with verbs that conjugate, a beginner learner may not be as good with the Du conjugations as they are with Sie. Again, when you are just starting with the language or you’re not confident you lean on repeating things you’ve learned and if you were taught Sie then that’s what you do.