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  • certainly not as "Herr Gruber"

    Is it a faux pas? It's common in English to use the native form of the honorific for forrins, e.g. Tsar Nikolai and Kaiser Wilhelm, not King, Herr Hitler and Monsieur de Gaulle, not Mister.

  • Yes, it's a faux pas in the sort of personal conversation we're talking about (especially as most English native speakers would mispronounce "Herr"). I know that using foreign titles like that is common in English, but I haven't heard it except for the sort of prominent personalities you cite, or indeed fictional characters like the Rowan Atkinson character Mr Bean, who is usually referred to as Mr Bean, or the Jacques Tati character M. Hulot in the same way. I'd say it's much less common than in English.

    In a sense, it's academic, as most Germans speak English nowadays and would generally try to switch to English when speaking to a native English speaker, so the question of how to address one in German would come up less.

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