Spanish Greetings and Survival Phrases: Say Something Today

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.

123

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.

Getting by

After hello comes the small exchange every first conversation runs on.

Learn the question and its answer as a pair, so they arrive together:

• ¿Cómo estás? Bien, gracias. ¿Y tú? - How are you? Fine, thanks. And you?
• ¿Cómo te llamas? Me llamo Ana. - What's your name? My name is Ana.

One register note, and only one. Spanish has a friendly you (tú) and a polite one (usted). To an official or an elderly stranger the polite forms are safer; the tú and usted page has the full rules.

Do not let the choice stall you. A visibly foreign beginner is forgiven either way, and the tú forms are the ones your first conversations will use.

Courtesies

These are the words Spanish speakers notice when they are missing.

A request with and without the softener:

• Un café, por favor. - A coffee, please.
• Muchas gracias. De nada. - Thank you very much. You're welcome.

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1. 1Un café, por favor.
2. 2De nada.
3. 3un café

The customer asks with por favor, says gracias on paying, and the baker answers de nada.

Perdón covers a small slip, such as stepping on a foot or squeezing past. Lo siento is for something that matters, such as bad news.

• Perdón, señora. - Sorry, madam.
• Lo siento mucho. - I'm very sorry.

No entiendo is quietly the most useful sentence a beginner owns: it asks for another go instead of leaving the other person guessing.

• Perdón, no entiendo. - Sorry, I don't understand.

The accent on sí is what separates yes from si, if. The diacritic accent page has the other pairs like it.

• Sí, por favor. - Yes, please.
• Si quieres, sí. - If you like, yes.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Say the summary table out loud, top to bottom, twice.
2. Do the drill below until the narrative is clean.
3. Next, Spanish word order: your first sentences built from parts.