English Greetings and Survival Phrases: Say Something Today
Here is good news: you can have your first English conversation today, before you study any grammar.
Greetings and polite words are fixed phrases in every language. Nobody builds thank you from grammar rules. You learn it as one whole thing to say. Do the same with the phrases below. Learn each one as a whole, say it out loud a few times, and you are ready for a real person - in a shop, in class, or online. The grammar comes later, and it will make the rest of English open up. It is not a door you must pass before you are allowed to say hello.
So today, these are just things to say.
Greetings
. The word to learn first. It works at any time of day, with one person or many, with a friend or a stranger. If you remember only one word from this page, remember .
. The same as hello, but shorter and more friendly. is what friends say to each other. is safe everywhere - with your teacher, in a shop, on the phone. When you are not sure, say . With a friend, say .
. A greeting for the early part of the day, before about midday.
. A greeting for later in the day, after work, when it is getting dark.
. What you say when you leave.
. The short, friendly form of goodbye, and what most people really say.
Getting by
? The normal question after hello. It is a small, friendly question, not a big one.
'm , . The normal answer. Learn the question and the answer together, as a pair, so they arrive together. You can add: ?
... How you tell someone who you are. Anna. Omar. Put your own name at the end.
? How you ask for someone's name. Together with ... this is the name exchange - the first real conversation most learners have. Hello. What is your name? My name is Anna. It works, and it is real English.
don't . The most useful sentence a beginner has. It keeps a conversation alive when the words are too hard, because it tells the other person to slow down or try again, instead of leaving them to guess.
, ? When someone speaks too fast. Most people are happy to say it again, more slowly.
Courtesies
. Add it when you ask for something. , . One word makes the request polite.
. What you say when someone helps you. is the short, friendly form.
're . The natural answer to .
. For after a mistake. You walk into someone, you are late, you drop something - say .
. For before you do something. You want to get past someone, or you want a person to look at you so you can ask a question. Before: . After: .
/ . Two of the shortest words in English, and two of the most needed.
A quiet promise for later
Look again at don't and 're . Right now they are just sounds you have learned as wholes, and that is fine. Later, when you learn how English sentences work, you will see inside them: don't is , 're is , and each phrase is built from small parts you will meet again and again. Then you will not just remember these phrases. You will understand them.
But that is for a later week. Today they are just things to say - so go and say one.