The aim of this article is to discuss the importance of teaching polite phrases in a foreign language lesson, in particular a German one. It is based on the results of the analysis of both documents regulating language education in Poland and the selected German coursebooks Direct neu (level A1-B1). This analysis allows, among others, answering the question whether and to what extent the polite forms and the examples of a language etiquette are included in the abovementioned documents and the selected German coursebooks. The presentation of the research results has been preceded by a short theoretical part which discusses the concept of culture, the language etiquette, and polite phrases, placing them in the intercultural context.