German
How to get natural German out of Syntic models, and what to check before you ship. The general rules for every language are on Work in other languages.
At a glance
| Language tags | de-DE, de-AT, de-CH |
| Script and direction | Latin script, left to right |
| Token use | Measure with token counting on your own text; non-Latin scripts and long compounds usually take more tokens per sentence than English. |
Register and form of address
Sie or du must be chosen deliberately. Sie is standard for business and support; many software and retail brands now use du. Capitalised Sie/Ihr/Ihnen marks formal address.
Numbers, dates and currency
Decimal comma and dot for thousands (1.234,50 €). Swiss German writing uses ss instead of ß and an apostrophe for thousands (1’234.50 CHF). Dates: 5. November 2026 or 05.11.2026.
Common pitfalls
- Compound nouns make German text longer: allow roughly 20–30% more space in UI strings than the English source.
- Gender-inclusive forms (Kund:innen, Kundinnen und Kunden) vary by organisation; give your rule.
- Austrian vocabulary (Jänner for January) appears with
de-AT; say if you need neutral German.
A system prompt line that works
Writing the language instruction in German itself is a strong signal:
Antworte auf Deutsch, siez den Nutzer, formuliere klar und knapp.(Answer in German, address the user formally (Sie), clearly and briefly.)
Keep the rest of your instructions in whichever language your team maintains best; the model follows mixed-language system prompts reliably, and the reply language follows this line.
Test before launch
- Collect 30 or more real German messages, including short, misspelt and mixed-language ones.
- Have a fluent speaker grade replies for correctness, register and naturalness; then calibrate a rubric grader on their grades (Evaluate).
- Check rendering in your actual UI: line breaks, truncation and fonts.
- Re-run the set whenever you change the prompt or the model.