Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody. My name is Alisha. In this lesson, I'm going to talk about some English greetings and their responses. This lesson has been prepared to present American English greetings. Let's get started.
Okay. I first want to begin with the most basic and most casual greetings that we use. I've marked some of these with a star, like you'll see here. That means that when you respond to this greeting, you can use the same word, you don't need to worry about a special response. Just use the same word that you heard the person use when they greet you. These two, the casual friendly, "hey" and "hi," are very common. We use these with friends, co-workers, colleagues. It's fine to use at any time of day. I included "Yo" here as well. "Yo" is very casual. Probably, don't use this one at work, but you can use this with your friends, your close friends, and your family members if you like, "yo." When someone says "hey," just say "hey." Or, if someone uses "hi," just respond with "hi." "Hi" sounds a little more stiff than "hey." "Hey" sounds a little more relaxed, a little more friendly. "Yo" is really relaxed, super casual. You might hear young people use "yo" a lot more than older people.
The next expression here is "hello." Hello. You can use "hello" to greet people that you meet face-to-face. That's fine. But, we usually use "hello" as the standard phone greeting. It's used when we pick up the phone. "Hello," and you can say, "My name is," or "Hello, this is," or "Hello. Alisha speaking," for example. You can use "hello" on the phone. We tend to use it mostly on the phone. It can be used, it is correct to greet someone with "hello" in everyday life face-to-face, but it might sound a little less friendly than "hi" or another greeting I'll talk about later. "Hello" is good for the phone, usually. I would recommend using "hello" for the phone.
Okay. Then, let's go to these three questions. We can respond to these three questions with the same response. Let's read the questions first. First one, "How are you?" You'll hear native speakers reduce this a lot. This question is not clearly pronounced as "how are you," but we'll say, "How are ya?" It sounds much shorter, "How are ya?" instead of "How are you?" "How are ya?" The answer, "Good, you?" This is the standard response.
Another question, "How is it going?" "It" means your life. "How is it going?" How's your life, in other words. "Good, you?" We can use the same response. My life is going good. Everything is good. "Going" means happening. How is your life happening? How are things in your life?
Another one, "How are you doing?" Very similar to "How are you?" Just a slight variation. We added "doing" here. "How are you doing?" Just like "How are you?" is reduced to "How are ya?" We can make this "How ya doin'?" You'll notice I used this apostrophe mark. Apostrophe is this dash here. It makes a short sound. I removed the "G" in "doing." "How ya doin'?" "How ya doin'?" sounds more casual and is much more commonly used than "How are you doing?" Again, the answer, "Good, you?"
I chose "good" here because this is the most common response to this question. You can say, "Great." You can say, "All right." You can say, "Not bad." All of those are fine. If you give a negative response, for example, if you say, "Not so good," or, "I feel sick," or, "I'm really tired," or, "I'm upset," you should be prepared to explain that. It's like you're starting a conversation. This is the standard response. The other person will probably say, "Good," and then they'll continue to the next part of your conversation. These are some listening points. "How are you?" changes to "How are ya?" "How are you doing" changes to "How ya doin'?" a little more natural, a little more friendly, too.
Okay. Let's continue to some time of day greetings. They are "good morning," "good afternoon," and "good evening." These tend to sound a little bit more formal than just "hey" or "hi," or other greetings I'll talk about later. "Good morning" used in the morning, very commonly used at work when you arrive at the office and you see your coworkers. We use "good morning" to say "hello" first thing in the morning. "Good afternoon" is a little more commonly used in workplaces or in, perhaps, client or customer relationship situations. For example, if I'm teaching a lesson and I see my students in the classroom, I come to the classroom, I say, "Good afternoon" to my students, because there's a little bit of distance there. "Good evening" as well. "Good evening" would begin a formal event. We could begin a formal event with "Good evening." We could use it at a restaurant, for example, again, in a customer client relationship. You could use it with friends and co-workers, I suppose, but it might sound a little too polite, "Good evening." It's not wrong, but it might sound a little bit formal. With friends, in the evening, we would probably just say, "Hey," or, "Hello," or "How are you?" That sounds a little more friendly. To respond to these, just repeat. Again, I've marked this with a star here. Just repeat. If someone says, "Good morning" to you, you can say, "Good morning." Something else we do here is we remove "good." This is to make it a little bit more casual, and we'll remove, as I did with doing down here, this apostrophe, we'll drop this "G" sound and add an apostrophe here. It's more difficult to do with afternoon. But, instead of saying, "Good morning," clearly pronouncing everything, we'll often drop "good" and say "Mornin'." There's no "G" sound there, "mornin'." I end on the "N" sound, or just "Afternoon," or "Evenin'." It sounds much more friendly, and it's not quite as polite, actually. If someone says this to you, like "Morning," you can just say, "Morning." You can use the "G" sound as well. It's up to you to choose. Some people ask what's the difference between "Good evening" and "Have a good evening." The difference is "good evening" is a greeting, a way to say "hello." "Have a good evening" is a way to say "goodbye." When you say, "Have a good day," "Have a good evening," you're saying "goodbye," actually. That's the difference. If you want to say "hello," please use "good evening." If you want to say "goodbye," use "Have a good evening." Also, please be careful. You'll notice "Good night" is not here. "Good night" is also a way to say "goodbye," or, especially for children, like from parents to children, a way to say the day is finished just before bed. "Good night" is used just before we go to sleep as well. Again, a goodbye. Please be careful. Not "have a good evening" or "good night." These are greetings we can use. "Good evening" is a much better greeting. Well, it's the correct greeting to use. Please use "Good evening," don't use "Good night."
Okay. Let's continue to the next couple. These are related. You might not know at first. "What's up?" This is a question that causes people a lot of nervousness, I think. How do I respond to this? Just answer "Not much." This is the standard reply. Just like "Good" is the standard reply here, use "Not much" to answer "What's up?" "What's up?" "Not much." "What's up?" "Nothing" is also okay. "What's up?" "Nothin'." "Nothing," or, again, we'll often drop this "G" sound, "nothing" or "nothin'." That sounds more casual. "What's up?" "Not much, you?" "Nothin'," or "Not much." The other person will probably say the same thing. Again, if you choose to use something like, "Oh, I had a bad day," or you start to explain a difficult situation or you hint that something bad happened, you should probably be prepared to talk about that. "What's up?" "Not much, you?" "Nothin'." That's a very typical greeting, actually.
Okay. Then, this "Sup" comes from "what's up?" It comes from this S-U-P. "What's up?" This is a very casual way of saying "What's up?" "What's up?" is casual. This is even more casual. You can say, "Not much." Or, you can just reply to "Sup?" with "Sup." You might use this, again, very close friends. "Sup?" That's it. It's like saying "hello," saying "what's up?" "What's new with you?" but just really quick, really short, "Sup?"
Okay. Let's move along, then, to some more especially use greetings. Depending on the situation, you might need to say "hello" to someone you have not seen for a long time. These are expressions you can use to do that. First one, "I haven't seen you in so long," or, "I haven't seen you in ages." Ages. Age is a very long time, so "ages" shows a very, very long time. "I have not seen you." "I have not seen you in so long." Another one, very common, "Long time no see." One more, "It's been a while." This "it's" is actually "it has been a while." It has been a while since I last saw you. It's been a while since I last saw you. But, we only say, "It's been a while." We drop the last part of that. One more, "Nice to see you again," or, "It's nice to see you again." "Nice to see you again." These all are greetings we can use when we haven't seen the other person for a long time.
How do we answer these? We can answer all of these with the same pattern. First, agree. "Yeah, it's been a long time." Again, you can use these expressions. "Yeah, long time no see," or, "Yeah, it's been a while," or, I said, "Yeah, it's been a long time." First, agree with the person. Then, ask a follow-up. "How are things?" You can use this similarly to "How are you?," or "How is it going?" "How are things?" means how is your life? "How are things?" "Good." The answer is "Good." "How are things?" "Good." Or, "How are things?" "Busy." "How are things?" "All right." Those are all very common, very standard responses to use. Others, if you want to level up your grammar a bit, "How have you been?" "How have you been?" and "What have you been up to?" You'll notice here, the grammar here is very similar to these expressions that we talked about over here. "How have you been?" This is a past perfect way of asking, "How are you?" How are you now? How have you been in the period since I saw you last? Since the last time I saw you up until now, how have you been? That's how we can ask about that. Same thing, "What have you been up to?" "What have you been up to" is the past perfect question of "What's up?" You'll see this "up," "What is up now?" "What is up?" with "What have you been up to?" In other words, since I last saw you until now, what did you do? What have you been doing? Asking about those activities in that period since you last met that person. This will change depending on your activities. You can say, for example, for this one, "What have you been up to?" You can answer with, for example, "Nothing, just work," if you have no special news. "What have you been up to?" "Nothing, just work." That's fine. If you have special news, you can say, "I got married," or, "I moved," or, "I got a new job." Something quick is the best way to answer this. For this one, "How have you been?" go back to this, "Good, you?" Very, very simple answers are the best.
Okay. Let's go on to two more kind of special used greetings, then. First one, "It's great to finally meet you." It's great to finally meet you. You'll see, if I remove "finally" here, this becomes a very common greeting. It's great to meet you. It's nice to meet you. But, if you're meeting someone that you admire or you really respect, or you were really excited to meet that person, like you're a fan, they're a famous musician or a celebrity, or an artist, or an athlete, for example, you're really excited to meet that person, you can say, "It's great to finally meet you." This shows the listener that you were really looking forward to meeting them, to having the chance to meet with them. If someone says this to you, or if you use this with someone, a typical response is, "Thank you, it's nice to meet you too." They'll typically say something like "Thank you," or, "That's really nice. It's nice to meet you too." This is just the same as any other first greeting, first time meeting someone. "It's nice to meet you too." "Thanks, it's nice to meet you too." Another one. This one you might hear, actually, when talking with friends and meeting new people, especially, if you're studying or working in another country. The expression is "I've heard so much about you." I've heard so much about you. This "I've," I've, I have, "I've heard so much about you." Sometimes, "I've heard so much about you from my colleagues," or, "I've heard so much about you from my roommate." Using "from" here shows where that person got the information. This may or may not be included. "I've heard so much about you." A typical response is, "Really? I hope nothing bad," or, "I hope you haven't heard anything bad." This is a very casual way to respond, "I hope nothing bad," meaning I hope you haven't heard anything bad about me. This shows that the speaker has gotten information, has gained information about the person they're meeting, but this is still the first time meeting that person. This tends to be used in situations where the speaker has heard positive information. If you've heard negative information about a person, I don't recommend using this expression. This has a positive feel about it. "I've heard so much about you" tends to sound very happy and cheerful. You can say, "Really? I hope nothing bad," or, "I hope it's good." That's a friendly way to start a conversation with someone who already has some information about you.
This is a quick introduction to some very common English greetings. I hope that that was helpful for you and I hope that you got some ideas for responses to these greetings. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again next time. Bye-bye.

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