Greetings In Spanish

Greetings in Spanish, learn how to say hello in Spanish, both formally and informally. *Updated to include* some appropriate responses.

Although there are many ways to say hello in Spanish, let's start with a simple:

"hello" or "hi" hola

Pretty easy right?

Now of course simply saying hello is really general and not very polite in certain situations.

It is a little more polite to say "good morning: or "good afternoon" and such.

So here are some more greetings in Spanish:

"good morning" or "good day" ¡Buenos días!

Depending on where you are in the world, the morning ends at different times, based on cultural differences, so use accordingly. Typically in the English speaking world, it ends right before 12 noon.

Note: the upside down exclamation mark? "¡" Spanish punctuation occupies different rules than that of the English language. More info on that here.

"good afternoon" ¡Buenas tardes !

You may also be wondering why good afternoon in Spanish is pronounced slightly different than good morning in Spanish, this is because día - day is masculine, while tarde - afternoon is feminine. That's why you see buenas and buenos. There will be more on gender specifics in the Spanish grammar portion of this site, but in the meantime, I talk a little about it on the colors in Spanish page.

there isn't a set rule on the time frame for the end of the afternoon, but typically it ends around 6 or 7pm and then it's either time to say good night, or good evening.

"good night" or "good evening" ¡Buenas noches!

This is one of those greetings in Spanish that can be used not only as a greeting but also as a farewell or goodbye.

Some other common Spanish greetings are:

"how are you?" ¿Cómo está?, ¿Cómo estás? o ¿Cómo está usted?

There are two ways of saying how are you in Spanish, como está is used for someone you may not know very well, or someone who may be older than you and you use the formal out of respect or possibly someone you don't know very well, therefore the verb in conjugated in the third person format.

You can also use the usted making it even more formal and polite. Usted means "you" in the formal sense of the word.

Alternately, como estás is an informal form of the greeting and is used for those whom you are familiar with, such as close friends and relatives and therefore it is conjugated in the second person format.

"how's it going"? ¿Qué pasa?

these are both rather informal or 'familiar' types of greetings

"what's up"? or "how are things? ¿Qué tal?

Greetings in Spanish - Responses to those greetings

You are on your way to learning Spanish. Click here for more simple Spanish phrases, the list will continue growing. And if you have any requests for any special Spanish phrases, feel free to comment here.

If you want to learn Spanish at a much faster pace, and save yourself a lot of time by not being compelled to visit this site every day, check out Visual Link Spanish they have a fabulous greetings tutorial section in their package.

Next in this series is how to say goodbye in Spanish.