German is a main language of Germany, Austria, parts of Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. It is also spoken in the French departement of Alsace (German: Elsass), in the Italian province of Alto Adige (German: Südtirol), parts of Luxembourg, and a small part of Belgium.
In common with many other European languages, German has two "you" verb forms which denote the relationship the speaker has to someone else. To express familiarity, one uses the du form; for formality, the Sie form. As a general rule the Sie form is used when one might address someone as "Madam" or "Sir". If on first name terms, one uses the du form. Grammatically, the Sie form takes the 3rd person plural ending.
There are 3 different noun genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The article of a noun depends on the gender: der (m), die (f) and das (n).
Furthermore, German nouns are declined. There are four grammatical cases: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), genitive (posessive), and dative (indirect object.) Each varies depending on the noun's gender and whether it is singular or plural.
An orthographic peculiarity is that "all" nouns, even those in the middle of a sentence, begin with a capital letter.
There are very strong accentual and dialectic differences in German-speaking countries. A German from the north and one from the south can have great difficulty understanding each other's dialects. Standard German, or "Hochdeutsch", is universally known, although not everyone speaks it well. Generally, the further south, the broader the dialect.
Along the coastline in the north of Germany, many people speak a related language called Plattdüütsch ("Plattdeutsch" in German). It is strongly related to Dutch or Danish and German; most Platt speakers will understand standard German.
The German spoken in Switzerland is referred to as Schwyyzerdüütsch. There are various varieties of Swiss German depending on the region.