Communicative goal: greeting and saying goodbye, your first conversation in Spanish

Basic greetings.

The easiest and most widely used word is hola. It works at any time of day and in almost any situation. One detail: the h is not pronounced, so it sounds like “ola”.

If you want to greet someone according to the time of day, you have three options:

Buenos días / Good morning: from the moment you get up until noon.

Buenas tardes / Good afternoon: from noon until it gets dark.

Buenas noches / Good evening or good night: from when it gets dark.

These expressions are generally used in the plural, although you may occasionally hear them in the singular. In Uruguay, for example, we say both buenos días and buen día / good morning, with the same meaning. And I have heard speakers of other varieties of Spanish say buena tarde / good afternoon. They work in both formal and informal situations. In addition, buenas noches also works as a goodbye: it is said when leaving a place at night or when going to sleep.

Do you want to see more courtesy formulas? In this article you have a complete repertoire, with thanks and apologies included.

Asking how someone is.

After greeting, we normally ask how the other person is doing:

¿Cómo estás? / How are you? → informal (friends, family, classmates or coworkers).

¿Cómo está usted? / How are you? → formal (strangers, older people, customers, a boss).

¿Cómo te va? / How is it going? → informal, with the same meaning. In formal: ¿cómo le va? / how is it going?

¿Qué tal? / How’s it going? → informal and very convenient, because it never changes.

Notice that only one letter changes in the verb: estás (tú) and está (usted). And remember that questions take two question marks, one at the beginning (¿) and one at the end (?).

These questions can be combined:

Hola, ¿qué tal? / Hello, how’s it going?

Buenos días, ¿cómo te va? / Good morning, how is it going?

Hola, buenas tardes, ¿cómo estás? / Hello, good afternoon, how are you?

An important cultural note.

In Spanish, ¿cómo estás? / how are you? is usually a courtesy formula, not an invitation to tell your life story. We say it even to strangers, for example at the supermarket checkout, and a short answer is expected: Bien, ¿y tú? / Good, and you?

This is different in other cultures, such as the Germanic one, where that question is asked when you really want to know how the other person is. In Spanish, to make someone understand that you want a sincere answer, context (that it is someone close to you) and tone of voice help.

Tú and usted: the general idea.

To address a person, Spanish has two main options:

Tú: familiarity and closeness. ¿Cómo estás? / How are you?

Usted: respect and formality. ¿Cómo está? / How are you?

With friends, partner, family or children, use tú. With a doctor, an older person you don’t know or a customer, use usted.

Now, actual usage depends on each country. In Uruguay, for example, Spanish is quite informal and usted is kept for very formal situations. In other countries it is used much more, and in some areas it can even carry a sense of familiarity. That is why, if you travel to a Spanish-speaking country, use usted when common sense calls for it and listen to how native speakers talk to each other to calibrate the level of formality. If you are unsure, it helps a lot to ask someone from the place.

Finally, in countries like Uruguay or Argentina, vos is used instead of tú (¿cómo estás vos? / how are you?). If you want to know more, in this article you can read more about subject pronouns in Spanish, and in this series of articles about the origin and prestige of the use of vos and about the changes in verb conjugation that its use implies.

Answering: estoy bien, estoy mal, estoy regular.

To answer ¿cómo estás? / how are you? we use the verb estar in the first person: estoy. In this article you can read more about the difference between the verbs ser and estar, their conjugations and main uses.

Estoy muy bien. / I am very well. 😄

Estoy bien. / I am well. 🙂

Estoy regular. / (Ni bien ni mal, “así así”). 😐 (neither good nor bad, “so so”)

Estoy mal. / I am not well. 🙁

A courtesy trick: after answering, return the question. Estoy bien, gracias. ¿Y tú? / I am well, thank you. And you? (informal) or Estoy bien, gracias. ¿Y usted? / I am well, thank you. And you? (formal). With ¿cómo te va? / how is it going?, the typical answer is Bien, ¿y a ti? / Good, and you?

Examples.

Informal dialogue (two friends in the morning):

— ¡Hola, Marta! Buenos días.
— Hello, Marta! Good morning.
— ¡Hola, Pablo! ¿Cómo estás?
— Hello, Pablo! How are you?
— Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y tú?
— Very well, thank you. And you?
— Regular, tengo sueño.
— So so, I am sleepy.
— ¡Ánimo! Bueno, nos vemos luego.
— Cheer up! Well, see you later.
— ¡Chau, hasta luego!
— Bye, see you later!

Formal dialogue (a female customer and a shop assistant in the afternoon):

— Buenas tardes, señor.
— Good afternoon, sir.
— Buenas tardes. ¿Cómo está usted?
— Good afternoon. How are you?
— Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y usted?
— Very well, thank you. And you?
— Bien, gracias. ¿En qué puedo ayudarla?
— Well, thank you. How can I help you?
— Quería consultar sobre los precios de sus servicios, por favor.
— I wanted to ask about the prices of your services, please.
— Claro que sí.
— Of course.
(Al terminar) / (When finished)
— Muchas gracias. Adiós, buenas tardes.
— Thank you very much. Goodbye, good afternoon.
— Adiós, que tenga un buen día.
— Goodbye, have a nice day.

Read them aloud and compare. In the informal one there are tú, chau and hasta luego; in the formal one usted, señor and a more careful tone appear.

Saying goodbye.

These are the most useful goodbyes to start with:

Adiós / Goodbye: works in any situation, formal or informal.

Chau / chao / Bye: informal and very common among friends.

Hasta luego / See you later: it can mean that you will see the person later, but it is also used when you don’t know whether you will see each other again.

Hasta pronto / See you soon: used the same way as hasta luego.

Hasta mañana / See you tomorrow: we see each other the next day.

Nos vemos (luego, después) / See you (later, afterwards): informal.

Que tenga un buen día / Have a nice day: formal. In informal: que tengas un buen día / have a nice day.

Buenas noches / Good night: at night or before going to sleep.

Notice the change from tenga to tengas. It is the same logic as está and estás: one letter marks the difference between usted and tú.

We have reached the end of this article. I hope you found it interesting. What I am completely sure of is that you will find it very useful: everything we saw in this article you will use all the time when you interact with other people speaking in Spanish. Thanks for reading!