By Ivy do Carmo
Are you starting to study German? Have you been studying it for a while now? Or do you already speak this complicated but interesting language? It does not matter in which category you are in, this article will be useful to helping you start practice speaking with other Germans. After all, good tips for learning German are always welcome, right?
In this article, we will go over 15 different ways to say hello in German, as well as other common greetings and farewells. This will be very important for you, specially if you are planning a trip to a German-speaking country or if you are keen on befriending German speakers and want to fit right in. Let’s begin with the basics.
Hello in German
The first thing you say to a person you encounter, no matter if you already know they or not, is “hello”. The same way English has several ways of doing so, German has different types of “hello”, varying the degree of formality and the location.
1 – Hallo
This is the most common way of saying hello in German and it is the first one we learn, because you can use it in any part of the day or night and also because it is very similar to the English greeting – you just have to replace the letter E with the letter A and you are good to go.
Hallo is pronounced as “hah-low” and it can be used in pretty much any situation, formal or informal. However, you probably already know that, so let’s move forward.
2 – Hi
Doesn’t it feel good when you discover that the language you are learning has identical words to English? Yes, I know it does. You think: “one less word that I have to remember”. This is the case with the greeting Hi in German, which is also used in casual situations. Hi is more informal than Hallo, so use it only with your friends and colleagues. Let’s see other informal greetings.
3 – Servus
We will now see some regional ways of saying “hello” in German, starting with servus, used in the southern regions. Servus comes from the latin “servant” and it can be translated as “at your service”. It is traditional in Bavaria (Bayern) and Austria and it can also mean “goodbye”.
4 – Moin
Greeting used in northern Germany, specially in Hamburg. Although it means “good morning”, moin can be used to greet people all day long. It has two common variations: moin moin and moinsten.
5 – Grüß Gott / Grüß dich
These are also southern greetings, used in Bavaria (Bayern) and Austria. It is important to know that because if you use these in northern Germany, you may cause surprise and may not be understood.
Grüß Gott can be translated as “God greets you” and corresponds to our “God bless you”, being mostly used by seniors. Notice that this greeting depends on age, region and, of course, the religious beliefs of the speaker. It is very formal.
A variation of it is Grüß dich, which is also used in Switzerland and that means “greet yourself” or “greetings to you”. It comes from the greeting Grüß dich Gott, which means “be blessed by God”. Although Grüß dich is more informal than Grüß Gott, it is still mostly used by older people. If you are addressing a group of people, say Grüß Sie.
The letter ß can cause confusion to the ones that are starting to learn German since we don’t have this letter in English. Remember: ß has the sound of SS.
6 – Grüezi
Grüezi is a formal greeting used in Switzerland. Knowing the degree of formality of the word is very important. If it is informal, you use it with family and friends, in casual situations. If it is formal, on the other hand, you use it to talk to your boss, your teacher or an authority.
7 – Jo
Highly informal, Jo is a slang that corresponds to our “yo”. You can imagine that it is only used by young people in super casual situations.
Good Morning in German
Now that we have already seen how to say hello in german, let’s see a little about those greetings that depend on the period of the day.
8 – Guten Morgen
It is not without reason that people say that it is relatively easy for English speakers to learn German because these two languages are similar in many aspects. He have already seen how easy it is to say hi in German because of these similarities.
Now we will talk about Guten Morgen, which you can easily guess it means “good morning”. It goes without saying that you have to use this greeting during the morning period, before midday. Although Guten Morgen is a more formal greeting, you can use it if you are not certain of which greeting to choose in a specific occasion.
9 – Guten Tag
Guten Tag (where the final letter G is pronounced as a K) literally means “good afternoon”. I say “literally” because Guten Tag is mostly used to say “good day”, hence you can use this greeting all day long. Remember that Guten Tag is formal, so you can use on formal situations or to show respect to someone that is older than you.
Just to make it clear: you can say Guten Morgen only until noon, but you can use Guten Tag all day, from the beginning of the morning until dusk (around 6 pm). It is common to shorten Guten Tag and simply say Tag, that means “hey”.
10 – Guten Abend
Guten Abend would require a bigger explanation if were a latin language speaker. I say this because it would be necessary to explain the difference between Guten Abend and Gute Nacht, because both greetings have the same translation (“buenas noches” in Spanish or “boa noite” in Portuguese, for example).
However, as I’ve mentioned before, English speakers have some advantages when learning German. The same English has two greetings to be used during the night period, “good evening” and “good night”, German has Guten Abend and Gute Nacht. Quite easy, right?
Guten Abend means “good evening” and must also be used from dusk (around 6pm) until bedtime.
11 – Gute Nacht
If Guten Abend is “good evening”, meant to be used during the night period as a “hello” when arriving a place, Gute Nacht is our “good night”, used not as a greeting but rather as a “goodbye” when you are going to bed.
Now that we have already seen how to say hello in German and how to say good morning in German, let’s move on to the last topic.
How Are You In German
12 – Wie geht es dir? / Wie get es Ihnen?
The most common way of asking how are you in German and also the first one we learn is Wie geht es dir?. Notice that this is not a greeting by itself, but it rather follow a greeting for small talk and to be polite. You can say, for example: Hallo! Wie geht es Ihnen heute? (“Hello! How are you today?”).
You may be wondering what is the difference between Wie geht es dir? and Wie geht es Ihnen?. If so, the answer is one more time the degree of formality. On one hand, Wie geht es Ihnen is very formal. This is because the pronoun Ihnen is used to talk to a stranger, especially someone older than you, and it is the proper way to address a person in a position of authority.
On the other hand, Wie geht es dir? is more informal since the pronoun dir is used to address friends and family, people you are close to, especially young people. However, a word of caution: in English-speaking countries, it is very common to ask “how are you?” to everyone you encounter, even someone you have never met before. In German-speaking countries, this is not as common. Therefore, it is better to ask “how are you?” only to people you already know.
13 – Wie geht’s?
Wie geht’s? is simply an abbreviation of the two greetings we saw above and it is also used after a greeting for small talk. For example: Hi! Wie geht’s? (“Hi! How’s it going?”). You may probably already guessed that Wie geht’s is more informal than the two mentioned above. However, there’s an even more informal way of asking how are you in German.
14 – Alles klar?
Alles klar? can mean “everything’s clear”, “alright” or “all fine”, but in the context of our article it corresponds to our “what’s up?”. Interestingly, it can be used to both ask how the person is and also to answer that question. Therefore, if you go to Germany, it will be common to see a young person asking another young person: Alles klar?, to which the other will answer Ja, alles klar, danke or simply Ja, that means “yes”.
15 – Na
The last one of our greetings is definitely the most interesting and complex one. Na is mostly used in northern Germany and literally means “well”. It is the shortest way of saying “hello, how are you?” – everything shortened in only two letters!
Imagine two northern Germans meeting. One asks Na? (“hi, how’s it going?”), to which the other answers Na. (“I’m fine, thanks”) A conversation can’t get any more summarized than this! You can also say Na du (to one person) or Na ihr (to a group of people). Actually, the word Na is amazingly versatile.
What did you think about these 15 different ways of saying hello in German? If you liked it, make sure to subscribe to Mimic Method’s Youtube Channel to get a lot of other cool tips.
