In the culture(s) where 'your' language is spoken, are there significant differences in the language when you are talking to family rather than strangers? older people rather than younger? men rather than women?
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The difference between formal and informal Bhasa Indonesia is very complex. Among linguists there is a consensus that Bhasa Indonesia Baku (the Indonesian taught in schools), with its characteristic impersonality and seriousness, is the formal way of speaking Bhasa Indonesia. However, informal varieties of the language are popular among educated native speakers of the language. One interesting instance of an informal language that I have researched is Bhasa Jakarta or Jakarta slang. The structural differences between Bhasa Jakarta and standard Indonesian include shortening of words, omission of words, changes of word order, some word substitution, and minor differences in pronunciation. This form of language would be best suited at an informal gathering in Jakarta between people of similar social status, but would be inappropriate for example in a group comprising of both men and women.
The history of Bhasa Jakarta dates back to the 17th century, when the population of the city of Jakarta consisted of various ethnic groups as a result of migration. Against the backdrop of a multilingual city, Bhasa Jakarta was born out of the need for different people from parts of Indonesia to arrive at a lingua franca. The 17th century trading port became the capital city of the Republic of Indonesia in 1949, but Jakarta continued to be described as a “language island” in a sea of regional Sundanese. The fact that various academics use this image conveys the process that finally resulted in the relegation of regional languages from informal urban spaces of Jakarta and explains the dominating use of Bhasa Jakarta, a language described as informal, racy and cynical, among even the educated urbanites. Immediately after Independence, academics speculate that it was this Bhasa Jakarta, which was the normal mode of communication for politicians, journalists, businessmen and other Jakarta cognoscenti converging on the capital city of the new nation state of Indonesia in the early 1950s, that was “dressed-up” to create the national language of Indonesia that we use today. In the post-Independence period, Jakarta also became a hub of culture and popular radio, magazines & TV shows based out of Jakarta such as Kang Sado, Gadis and Sinetron spread Bhasa Jakarta extensively throughout Indonesia.
The distinctness of Korean between formal and informal is very large. To be more specific, there are three levels of Korean in the sequence of higher respect: informal low respect, informal high respect, and formal high respect. The most widely used Korean for daily conversation is the informal high respect because people want to show respect to others but not being over formal. Even though informal, it is a polite way to express ideas. The only situation for them to use informal low respect is to talk to people you are really close with or younger than you. A simple example could be greeting: in the formal way, people usually use 안녕하십니까 (annyeong-hasimnikka) while in informal Korean, people use 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo) or just simply안녕 (annyeong). Also, in the Korean drama My Fair Lady, the female character Hae-na talk to one man in formal Korean and another in informal Korean.
I don't have a grasp on all the ways to show formality and informality in Hindi, but I became aware of a few while I was in India. First, similar to French, Hindi has two forms of the subject "you". The first is tum, which can be used with friends or younger people. The second is aap, which is used with strangers, elders, and father figures. If you are addressing a man with aap, the end of any adjective or verb being attributed to him will end in the more formal "eh" ending. You can also address a woman as aap, but the words attributed to females in a sentence always end in "ee", regardless of formality.
Another way to address someone formally is to add "ji" to the end of their name. For instance, I would often call my my host mother Nivedita, "Nivedita-ji" as a form of respect and endearment. However, I don't think it would be appropriate to use this term when addressing a male professor. I am not sure whether "ji" is used only for respect, or for people close to you.
It is also very important to address others by their full title and honor them by their status. Because of the historical social hierarchy in India, there are still some remnants of caste and occupational status that remain important to many people. We were instructed to always say "madam" or "sir" at the end of every sentence when addressing a professor.
I think you might want to explore a bit more about the use of -ji. Ask your language partner, of course, but you might also see if there is anything written about this. The question about female-female and female-male may be important.
Yes. There are differences in Korean when you speak with strangers and with people you know. It would be more formal when you talk to strangers and older people. My friend tells me that they use same phrase at the end of each sentences to express the formality, such as "si me da".
So you, too, will need to practice within various scenarios in which you address people of various ages and genders.
Yes, there are. Korean in its simplest form is non-honorific. Thus, when simply talking to friends (regardless of gender), you can use this form. When addressing the elderly or in a professional setting, the sequences become a lot more complex. I talked to my language partner and he told me that there is not any specific that you add when addressing someone politely; rather certain words have corresponding words in order to make the phrase honorific. When addressing men or women, there is not a grammatical change. However; there are some words that you would say to a woman versus man. I learned that these are mostly slang words that are common in Kores. One example is if you were a female, you could call a male that was older than you "oppa". Oppa basically means older brother; however, its also a term that is used when a girl likes a boy.
So you'll need to sort out some of this by working with scenarios in which you address people of various ages and genders.