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  • Hello.

  • Hi there.

  • How's it going?

  • Hey hey.

  • What's up?

  • How are you doing?

  • Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

  • Welcome to this English lesson on greetings.

  • Now, you might think this is a simple topic but it's not.

  • I wish sometimes that English only had the greetings

  • hi and hello.

  • I think that would make things a lot easier for people

  • but there are a lot of different greetings in English

  • and I find as I continue to teach English online,

  • many people do have questions

  • about how to answer things like what's up

  • or how's it going or how are you doing today?

  • So I thought I would take an in depth look.

  • I thought I would take a really good look

  • in this English lesson

  • at all the different types of greetings in English

  • and try to explain them in a very logical way

  • so that as you start to speak English

  • or continue to speak English,

  • you can use all of the greetings correctly.

  • (calm music)

  • Well, hey, welcome to this English lesson

  • on English greetings.

  • Before we get started,

  • please don't forget to click that red Subscribe button below

  • and give me a thumbs up if this video helps you learn

  • just a little bit more English.

  • So let's talk about English greetings.

  • I tried to analyze English greetings

  • and I tried to organize them

  • in a way that I think will make it a lot easier

  • for you to understand.

  • I think first we should talk about the simple greetings.

  • So the simple greetings are greetings like hi

  • or hi there or hello or hello there or hello hello.

  • Sometimes we say hello hello twice in a row.

  • I'm not sure why.

  • I think we say that to be cute.

  • We say things like hey or hey there or hey hey

  • or hey man or hey girl.

  • Yeah, that last one just sounded a little bit funny

  • but we do say all of those things

  • and those are definitely our simple greetings.

  • We also say things like good morning, good afternoon

  • and good evening.

  • So we have a lot of simple greetings.

  • Oh and there's two more.

  • If you wanna sound like a cowboy, you can say howdy

  • and if you wanna sound hip and cool, you can say yo.

  • So if you look over there,

  • you can see all the simple greetings.

  • Now, the cool thing about the simple greetings

  • is the statement or the greeting is also the answer.

  • So if someone says hi to you, you can respond by saying hi.

  • If someone says howdy, you can say hello.

  • If someone says hey man, you can say hi.

  • So the simple greeting also acts as a proper choice

  • for an answer to that greeting.

  • So again, if someone says hello, you can say hi.

  • If someone says hi there, you can say hello hello.

  • So all of the simple greetings that you see there,

  • you can also use as your response

  • and we should talk a little bit

  • about which ones are formal.

  • So I would say hi, hello, good morning, good afternoon,

  • good evening and sometimes we even say good day

  • although that's rare now.

  • Those are all quite formal.

  • When you start to say hi there or hello there

  • or hello hello, those are informal

  • and the informal version of good morning is just morning.

  • So someone will just say morning, how's it going?

  • Notice how I added a question there.

  • We'll get to that in a sec.

  • We'll make things more complex in just a moment.

  • The informal version of good afternoon is just afternoon

  • and the informal version of good evening is just evening.

  • So those are all of your simple greetings.

  • Divide it up into somewhat informal and somewhat formal.

  • By the way, yo would probably be slang

  • and howdy would just be something you say for fun.

  • So there you go, those are all your simple greetings

  • and by the way, one last thing.

  • You can always add the person's name

  • when you are using the simple greetings.

  • So you can say hi, Bob.

  • Hello there, Bob.

  • Hey, Joe.

  • Ooh, I was gonna say how's it going?

  • We're not at that part of the lesson yet though.

  • Hello there, Fred, how are you today?

  • So notice I can't help but add a question

  • and we'll talk about that in just a moment

  • but those are all of your simple greetings.

  • You can use it as a greeting

  • and you can also respond to all of those greetings

  • using the same greetings.

  • So that's your simple greetings.

  • (calm music)

  • Here's where it starts to get a little bit difficult though.

  • We don't just stop with hi or hello there.

  • We usually add a question when we are speaking English

  • and when we are greeting someone

  • and I tried to classify these questions

  • and I will give you some possible answers.

  • So often, we will start with the simple greeting.

  • So we'll say hey hey or we'll say hi

  • and then we'll add a question.

  • One of the common questions that we'll ask

  • is how's it going?

  • When we say how's it going,

  • it is the contraction of how is it going

  • but we don't usually say all the words.

  • We usually say how's it going

  • and some possible answers are good, pretty good,

  • not too bad, it's going good.

  • This is a question that sometimes people aren't sure

  • how much detail they should give

  • and I'll give you some information about that

  • towards the end of the video

  • but generally, if you are speaking to someone at work

  • or someone that you don't know that well,

  • you would answer with good, pretty good,

  • not too bad, it's going good.

  • All of those would be great answers.

  • Notice though I think you're supposed to say

  • it's going well.

  • That would probably be grammatically correct

  • but we actually say it's going good.

  • It's going good.

  • How's it going?

  • It's going good.

  • The next set of questions that you might ask

  • is you might ask how are you, how are you today,

  • how are you doing and how are you doing today?

  • So all of those are kind of the same question.

  • They kind of mean the same thing.

  • Possible answers for those questions are I'm fine,

  • good, I'm good, pretty good or I'm doing great.

  • So of those questions, how are you, how are you today,

  • how are you doing, how are you doing today,

  • those are all of your possible answers.

  • I'm fine, I'm good, good, pretty good, I'm doing great.

  • And again, keep watching 'cause I'll talk a little bit

  • about how much detail you will give

  • when you answer these questions in a moment.

  • The next set of questions you might ask

  • and remember, you usually use a simple greeting

  • and then you add a question to it.

  • So you might say hey man, what's up,

  • hey man, what's going on or hey man, what's happening?

  • So all of these questions

  • are almost always answered the same way.

  • You either say not much or not a whole lot.

  • So if someone says to you hello, what's up,

  • you most likely will say not much

  • or you might say not a whole lot.

  • I know it's kind of a funny way to answer

  • but generally, I would say 99% of the time

  • when someone says to me what's going on,

  • I answer by saying not much or not a whole lot.

  • The last set of questions that we ask

  • are the questions how are things or how's everything?

  • If someone says to you hey hey,

  • how's everything or how are things,

  • you usually answer by saying things are great

  • even if things aren't great

  • and I think that's part of why greetings in English

  • can be rather confusing

  • because we're not always honest with our answers.

  • So again, to review, I went over the simple greetings

  • and then I've added another level.

  • These are more complex greetings.

  • The complex greeting, you take a simple greeting

  • and then you add one of the questions.

  • So you could say things like morning, what's up?

  • You could say hello there, how are you?

  • You could say howdy, how are things?

  • So all of the simple greetings start the greeting

  • and then you add one of the questions afterwards

  • but here's the challenging part.

  • How do you answer these questions?

  • Well, it depends who you are talking to.

  • If my mom says what's up, I will tell my mom in great detail

  • what is actually happening in my life.

  • If my mom says how are you and I'm not feeling great,

  • I will tell my mom exactly how I'm feeling.

  • If however I'm talking to someone I don't know as well,

  • I would just say I'm fine, good, I'm good.

  • I would use all of the answers that I gave earlier,

  • those short, quick answers.

  • So again, if my sister said to me how are things

  • and if things weren't good,

  • if I was having some difficulties in my life,

  • not just speaking English, I would honestly tell my

  • my sister how things are going.

  • If a colleague who I had not worked with for very long

  • asked how are things,

  • I would probably just things are great.

  • So it's a little challenging to figure this out.

  • The safe thing to do is to use the short answers.

  • If someone says how's it going,

  • you should just answer and say good.

  • If someone says what's up, you should say not much

  • and then here's the last part.

  • When you are greeting someone, you use the simple greeting

  • then you add one of the questions

  • and then if you are answering the question,

  • you usually say you.

  • So if someone says to me hey man, what's up,

  • I would say not much, you?

  • So you can simply add the word you after you respond

  • and it prompts the other person to answer you.

  • So let me give you another example.

  • If someone says hi, how's it going,

  • I can say pretty good, you

  • and that prompts the person who is greeting me

  • to then give me an answer.

  • Anyways, I hope that made some sense.

  • I hope all of the words that I put up over here

  • helped you understand just a little bit more

  • how greetings work in English.

  • Thank you for watching the entire lesson.

  • If you are new here,

  • don't forget to click that red Subscribe button below

  • and give me a thumbs up

  • if this video helped you understand English greetings

  • just a little bit better.

  • I'm Bob the Canadian and you're learning English with me

  • and hey, if you have a little bit more time,

  • why don't you stick around and watch another video?

  • (calm music)

Hello.

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