Say something today: hello and goodbye

You can hold your first Spanish conversation before you have conjugated a single verb. Greetings and courtesies are fixed phrases: learn them whole, the way you learned thank you as a child, and use them today.

Here is the whole kit on one screen.

Greetings

Hola is the one to learn first, because it never puts a foot wrong: morning or night, one person or a crowd, a friend or a stranger.

• Hola, Pedro. - Hi, Pedro.
• Hola a todos. - Hello, everyone.

The other three greetings depend on the time of day. Spain eats late, so its afternoon runs late too: buenos días lasts until lunch (around two), and buenas noches starts around nine. In much of Latin America the day turns at noon and the night at dusk.

Notice the endings. Día is a masculine word and tarde and noche are feminine, so the word for good changes to match: buenos with días, buenas with the other two. You will meet the reason in the noun gender lesson; for now the colour shows it.

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1. 1buenos días
2. 2buenas tardes
3. 3buenas noches

Midday has no label on purpose: Spain still says buenos días until lunch, while much of Latin America switches to buenas tardes at noon.

Buenas noches works both ways: hello when you arrive after dark, and goodnight when you leave or go to bed.

• Buenas noches, señor. - Good evening, sir.
• Buenas noches, Ana. Hasta luego. - Goodnight, Ana. See you later.

For goodbye, adiós is the one everybody knows, but hasta luego (literally until later) is what most people say, even to a shopkeeper they will never see again.

• Gracias, hasta luego. - Thanks, see you later.
• Adiós, Pedro. - Goodbye, Pedro.