What Do You Say when You Greet People?

The first word I like to learn when I come to a new country is the word of greeting in the local language. It normally gives me a good way to start a friendly conversation. People will normally smile or trying to teach me how to pronounce the word correctly. Warm and smooth dialog would normally follow.

In Thailand, we always say "Sawadee" when we greet each other. We also use the same word in many other occasions. We say "Sawadee" when we part with each other. We say "Sawadee" in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. This makes life easy by not having to remember too many words.

When I went to study in Hong Kong at the age of eight, I learned a new word "Joa-san" in Cantonese to greet people in the morning. "Joa" means early and "San" means morning. So the two words mean early in the morning. At other time of the day, people would simply say "Ne-Hoa". "Ne" is you, and "Hoa" is fine. It says "you must be fine."

Chinese in the mainland, perhaps are lazier, shorten the word to say only "Jao" or "early" for morning greeting. They say the same thing "Ni-Hao" in all other occasions.

Hong Kong was still a colony of Great Britain then. I picked up English there and learned that the British would say "Good morning" in the morning. They do have "Good afternoon" and "Good evening" for greetings during other time of the day. However, they seldom use them. They always say "Hello, How are you?" when it is not in the morning.

I went to Australia at the age of fourteen. The first word I picked up was the Aussie greeting "G'day mate". Strange as it is, it pronounces "Ga-die mite". So we always joke in while in Australia that the answer to the question "When did you come?" is "I come here to-die (today).

When I took Japanese courses for fun in my sophomore, I learned that Japanese has different greeting words for different times of the day. In the morning, it is "Ohiyo gosaimatsu", during the day, it would be, "Konijiwa", and in the evening, the greeting is "Konbanwa".

My wife is an Indonesian and the first word I learned from her was again the greeting one. For Indonesians, like the Thai, they always say the same thing anytime in the day when meeting each other. That makes learning simpler. And the word is "Apagapar" or "How are you?"

When I traveled the world later in life, I learned to say "Hi" from the American.

I also had a great Italian friend, Franko Baltaro, for many years. He passed away few years ago from cancer. I do not remember he ever greeted me in Italian, We always say "Hi" when we met. But I do remember he always "Ciao" instead of "Good bye" when we part.

I wish I could ask him how to say "Hi" in Italian or they also use "Hi" like the Americans. And what do you say when you greet each other?

Anyhow, "Sawadee Krap"