November 27, 2008
Learning To Speak Spanish Greetings
When you initially begin to pick up Spanish, Spanish greetings are normally the first things that you learn. What do you know if you don't know how to say "hello?" Learning the greetings will help you to learn Spanish quick in its simplest form because you don't need to mess around with all the verb agreements or word orders. Spanish greetings are expressed in simple phrases. No complex words need to be looked up or added. As I said before, as you learn Spanish, the first phrase you need to know is "hello." When you say that in Spanish, you would say, "Hola."
"Hola" can be used either formally or casually to say hello to anyone you may meet. If you want to say hello on the phone, you might use "bueno" or "diga."
If you want to say "goodbye" in Spanish, you would say, "Adiós."
If you want to say, "How are you?" you would say, "Cómo estás?" If you want to say, "Good afternoon." you would say, " Buenas tardes.". If you want to say, "Good morning" or "Good day," you would say, "Buenos días." "Good night" in Spanish is buenos noches, and to ask for somebody's name, you would say, "Cómo te llamas?"
Once you get these down, you will find that it's a breeze to pick up the language, but you are in for some more complex terms a bit later on down the road. Other basics that you can start learning are numbers, the alphabet, telling time, asking directions, gender, color, body parts, and family.
Learning these types of common terms will help you learn Spanish quickly as you are able to use these phrases everyday. It is natural to hello and good night all of the time so you should be comfortable practicing your Spanish daily.
Later on, you can learn to say more complex greetings such as, "Hello, how are you are you doing?" or "Hi, the weather is pleasant today, isn't it?"
You can start to get a little more sophisticated by asking "What's up?" or "What's new?" To say that in Spanish, you would say "Qué hay?" If you would like to say, "How's it going?" you would say, "Qué pasa?" If you would liketo say "nice to meet you" you would say "Mucho gusto."
Those are just a few of the more intermediate level greetings that can help you to learn Spanish while getting to meet other people.
In Spain, it's often a common thing for people to greet each other with kisses on both cheeks when they meet. However, men will normally just shake hands. Even though people kiss each other often when they meet, they do not do it all of the time. For instance, in during a business meeting, you will not catch people giving each other kisses on the cheeks.
If you are in the States, you may not want to try kissing anyone as you learn Spanish, even if it's another Spanish person. Most Spanish people in the States have gotten used to the American culture, and Americans don't normally kiss each other when they first meet. Nevertheless, should you visit Spain, you can try this. It adds to the fun as you learn Spanish.