Responses to Greetings - in Spanish

For this third post, I want to go over some responses to the greetings we learned last time.

We learned these words / phrases and their respective meanings:

Hola                                Hello
Buenos días                    Good morning
Buenas tardes                 Good afternoon
Buenas noches               Good evening

If you are responding to any of the above statements, you can just reciprocate.  For example, if someone says:  'Good morning!' - then you can reciprocate with 'Good morning!' .  The same goes for all three of these statements which are based on the time of the day. 

Using the word 'Hola' as a response is also acceptable.  For example:

Speaker 1:  ¡Buenos días!       
You:          ¡Hola!   or  ¡Buenos días!

You'll notice that reciprocating 'in kind' is as common in Spanish as it would be in English.  Also notice that when making an exclamatory statement in Spanish, we use the upside down exclamation point.  Spanish does this in order to signify which word or phrase - in other words, which part of the sentence - is being exclaimed.  This concept also carries over for questions - using an upside down question mark is standard procedure for questions.

That brings us to our next greeting:

¿Cómo está Ud.?             meaning:  How are you?  (when being formal)
Pronounced: 
Komo eh-stah  OO-sted

or

¿Cómo estás?                  meaning:  How are you?   (when speaking to a familiar person)
Pronounced:
Komo eh-stahs

Being able to ask either of these questions in the right place, to the right person is crucial.  Usually, people would ask the first one (¿Cómo está Ud.?) to someone you d on't know, to an elder, or to show respect.  Asking the other question (¿Cómo estás?) would be used to communicate to someone that you know well or to a friend.

Spanish makes a distinction between the formalized version of 'you' and the familiar, or personal version of 'you'. 

In either case, after asking someone how they are doing, these responses are common:

bien                             well
(bee-ehn)

muy bien                     very well
(moo-ee bee-ehn)


Well start with these for now.  Try these greetings and responses out with some people you know who speak Spanish.  The more you practice, the more comfortable you will become with these words!