Addressing people & 您

Chinese address is built on title and relationship far more than on first names. Strangers, elders, teachers, and superiors are addressed with Surname + Title — 王老师 (Teacher Wang), 李经理 (Manager Li), 张医生 (Doctor Zhang) — rather than a given name. Using someone's bare given name signals real closeness, so it's best reserved for people who have already invited that familiarity.

您 (nín) is the polite/formal 'you', used for elders, first-time contacts, customers, and anyone clearly senior to you — it's especially common in northern China and Beijing service culture. Among peers, classmates, and close friends, the plain 你 (nǐ) is normal and 您 can even feel stiff or distant. When in doubt with someone older or more senior, default to 您; you can always relax into 你 once they signal it's fine.

怎么称呼您? ('How should I address you?') is the standard polite way to ask someone's name or title on first meeting, more graceful than a blunt '你叫什么名字?'. Once you know a title, use it consistently rather than switching to a given name — Chinese colleagues will often introduce themselves by surname and role specifically so you know how to address them going forward.