Learning to speak Spanish can be both fun and rewarding.
Learning Spanish commonly begins with Spanish greeting words and phrases.
The single word “Hola” (the “H” is not pronounced) in Spanish is the same as the English word “Hello” and is uncluttered by any complex syntax.
“Hola” is an appropriate greeting for both strangers or acquaintances when addressing them in person. However, Spanish speakers generally use “diga’ or “bueno” when answering the phone, unlike English which uses “hello” for both situations.
After first greeting someone, you will eventually depart and the Spanish equivalent of “goodbye” is “adios.”
The Romance languages (Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian) generally have two forms of verbs for addressing people. There are what is normally referred to as the formal form (normally used when addressing strangers, older people (who are not close friends or relatives) or people of higher position and the informal form generally used when addressing relatives, friends, younger people or people of lower position.
Subsequent to the initial greeting, one usually says something such as “How are you?” A Spanish speaker would say, “Como esta?” (formal) or “Como estas?” (informal), or perhaps “Que passa?” (What’s happening?”), “Como se va?” (formal) or “Como te vas?” (informal) for “How is it going with you?”.
When saying “Good afternoon” “Buenas tardes” is the Spanish phrase. If you want to say “Good morning, Good day, etc” “Buenos dias” is the same thing in Spanish.
“Good night” is “Buenos noches.”
If the person you are greeting is a stranger, you might ask “Como se llama?” (formal) or “Como te llamas?” (informal) for “What is your name?” The literal translation would be “How do you call yourself?”
These are the simplest greetings to learn and once you master these Spanish phrases the rest is easy. There are a few harder ones to learn, but not yet. The next step to learning Spanish is numbers, letters, time, asking how to get somewhere, male or female, colors, parts of the body, and relatives.
Simple every day words and phrases such as these greetings are some of the most frequently used in Spanish and frequent use will help build your comfort with the language.
