Locale De De
Use when working with the German (Germany) locale (`de-DE`) — its endonym Deutsch (Deutschland), Latin script, left-to-right (LTR) direction, or spoken-population data. Reference data and translation guidance (register, grammar, idiom, typography) for this specific locale; see [[locale]] for general i18n/l10n concepts (BCP 47, plural rules, RTL) that apply across all locales.
Reference data for the German (Germany) locale — endonym Deutsch (Deutschland), written in the Latin script, left-to-right (LTR).
Identifiers
- BCP 47 tag:
de-DE - ISO 639-1:
de - ISO 639-3:
deu - Script: Latn (Latin)
- Region: DE (Germany)
- Text direction: ltr — left-to-right (LTR)
Speakers (approximate)
- L1 (native): 74,000,000
- L2 (additional): 5,600,000
- L1+L2 (total): 80,000,000
Base locale
This is a regional variant of Locale De 001 (German), the base/macro locale for this language.
Pluralization
CLDR plural categories for this locale: one, other (2 forms).
- one —
i = 1 and v = 0(e.g. 1) - other — everything else (e.g. 0, 2~16, 100, 1000, …)
See Unicode Messageformat for writing plural messages using these categories.
Translating into this locale
Apply Locale De 001 with German (Germany) conventions.
- Orthography: the Duden and the official rules of the Rat für deutsche Rechtschreibung; the ß is used (Straße) after long vowels and diphthongs.
- Formats: day.month.year, 24-hour clock, decimal comma, euro after the amount; "Sie" is the default in business; the consumer web has moved toward "du" in many brands.
- Vocabulary: "Handy" (mobile), "Brötchen", "Abitur", "Bundesland", "Krankenkasse"; official terms follow the federal terminology of the Bundesverwaltung and the German Institute for Standardization (DIN).
- Tone: direct, factual, and precise; marketing hype and exaggeration are viewed skeptically.
Common pitfalls
- Using Austrian or Swiss terms ("Jänner", "Velo", "parkieren") for a German audience.
- Over-promising language that sounds like a direct translation of American marketing.
- The general pitfalls in Locale De 001 also apply.
Learn more
- Locale for BCP 47 identifiers, locale-sensitive formatting, pluralization, and text-direction concepts that apply across all locales.
- Unicode Messageformat for writing plural/selection messages correctly for this locale's grammar.
- Duden (https://www.duden.de)
- Microsoft Localization Style Guide, German (https://aka.ms/german-styleguide)