Around the 8th grade of school for me....I briefly took a German class (6 weeks). What I'll readily admit is that this became a daily challenge to understand the language structure, and meaning of German. In fact, it might have been better to start with a history and culture class....than language itself.
A couple of years would pass, and I'd be on my first military tour of Germany (1978-79). There along the second week, we had a brief three-hour introduction seminar, with forty-odd expressions mingled into it. With that....came the sie and du phrases (both meaning you). The German lady spent two minutes trying to explain why two 'yous' had to exist, and it just didn't make much sense to me.
Several months would pass and one of the older German guys (WW II background) would sit one day on a break and basically break this down why you need two 'yous'. His explanation led to a historical thing, and how Germans came to regard some folks as real friends, and some folks as just 'the others'. In his way, this went back to the Roman period.
Du would normally be reserved for the inner circle (your wife, your kids, your family, most folks in the inner office sphere, your neighbors that you brought into the circle, etc). Sie is served for those outside of the circle. For example....maybe every morning for 20 years....you had a coffee and snack at the corner bakery, with Helga serving you. You might ask about news or have a brief exchange with Helga for 20 years....but she would be regarded as a 'sie'....not a 'du'. The same would be true of a neighbor who lived across from you, and maybe you have one brief exchange with the guy each month, but you and him only reach the 'du' stage around the 8th year of the neighbor situation.
Officially, on paper....no one can state when sie ends, and du begins.
For me, this was difficult to imagine. But my German co-worker noted that Americans have that odd history....the pioneer deal, where a person living four miles away....was your only neighbor, and you automatically referred to the guy as a friend (the German mindset of du). He'd been on some road-tour in the US in the mid-1970s, and just about every American he bumped into...was more or less on friendly grounds, wanting to explain things or advise on route advice.
Why du and sie matter that much? Well...verbs. You see....for every single verb that you use with du.....it's a slightly different verb for sie. Yeah, it basically complicated matters a hundred-percent. There's a whole set of extra verbs that you have to remember, and those can only work with du.....or with sie, but not both.
An imaginary line? Some Americans that I've come across....come to grasp this whole division of du and sie.....just shake their heads because the du-crowd seem to end up getting friendlier attention, than the sie-crowd. I laughed over the topic when it first got brought up but after a while, I came to agree....there is more or less a border existing.
Explaining a 'lot' about Germans? No. But it's one of a hundred things that you kinda need to about the culture and things are just a little bit more complicated than you'd imagine.
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