Material

Reference Material
Material de Consulta

Greetings and Farewells

Centro de Industria y La Construcción

Regional Tolima
Ibagué
2017
Follow the dialogue.

Mr Bean meets Mrs Breuer, one of his students, and her husband in the street.

Mr Bean:

Mrs Breuer: Good morning, Mrs

Breuer.

Mr Bean: Good morning, Mr Bean. How are you?

I'm fine thanks, and you?

Mrs Breuer:

Not too bad. Mr Bean, this is my husband Michael, Michael this is Mr Bean
my English teacher.
Mr Breuer:

Mr Bean: Pleased to meet you.

Mr Breuer: Pleased to meet you too. Are you from Germany, Mr Breuer?

Mr Bean: Yes, East Germany, from Dresden. And you, are you from London?

Mrs Breuer: No, I'm from Derby, but I live in London now.

Mr Bean: Well, goodbye Mr Bean, it was nice to see you.

Yes, goodbye.

Centro de Industria y la Construcción – Regional

Tolima

Programa de Bilingüismo Centro de Industria y de la Construcción

What to say...

->Meeting<-

When you meet people you say "Good morning" first thing in the morning, "Good afternoon" from
about 12.00 till around 17.00 and "Good evening" from then on.

"Hello" or "Hi" are more informal but can be used at any time.

Question Emotion Response

o How are you?  Great thanks.

o How are you?  Fine thanks. or I'm OK thanks.


o How are you? Not too bad thanks.

<-Parting->

When leaving, you say "Goodbye".

"Bye" is more informal.

When leaving at night, you say "Good night".

Centro de Industria y la Construcción – Regional
Tolima
When going to bed you say "Good night."
Shaking Hands

When meeting someone formally for the first time, we shake

their hand and say "How do you do?" or "Pleased to meet you."

"How do you do?" isn't really a question, it just means "Hello".

When young people meet informally they sometimes say "Give

me five!" and slap their hands together (high five).

Generally we do not shake hands with people we know well.

Formal to Informal Greetings and Introductions

First meetings

Formal Introducing yourself Introducing others Responding to an On Leaving

introduction

 How do  Mrs Hand,  Pleased to  Goodbye. It's a

Centro de Industria y la Construcción – Regional
you do? My may I introduce meet you Mrs pleasure to have
Tolima
name is Mrs my boss, Mr Hand. met you.
Hand. Smith.

Programa de Bilingüismo Centro de Industria y de la Construcción

 Greetings and Farewells
Saludos y Despedidas
 Hello,  Lynne, I'd like you  Pleased to  Goodbye. Nice

Lynne Hand. to meet meet you Lynne. to have met you.

I'm the owner John Smith, our
of this web site. salesman.
John, this is
Lynne Hand.

 Lynne  Lynne,  Hi, Lynne. How  Bye. It was

Hand. meet John, my are you? nice to meet you.
husband. John,
this is my
teacher Lynne.

Subsequent meetings

Possible Greetings Possible responses

Informal  Hello, Mrs Hand. It's nice to see  What a pleasant surprise!
you again. How are you? It's been a while.

Centro de Industria y la Construcción – Regional

Tolima

 Good morning Mrs Hand. How  I'm very well thank you. And
are you today? you?

Programa de Bilingüismo Centro de Industria y de la Construcción

 Greetings and Farewells
Saludos y Despedidas
 Good afternoon, Mrs Hand. It's  Thank you. It's nice to see you
good to see you. too. How are you?

 Hello Lynne. How are you  Fine thanks. What's new with
doing? you?

 Hi, Lynne! How's it going?  Not too bad, busy as ever.

 Hi, Lynne. How are things?  Oh fine. You know how it is.

!Note - on first meeting say, "It's nice to meet you", and when departing "It was nice to meet you".

For future meetings say, "It's nice to see you again", and when departing, "It was nice to see you
again."

Saying good bye

Centro de Industria y la Construcción – Regional

If you want to end a conversation and then, all of a sudden, start stuttering because you don't know
how to appropriately say goodbye in English, it can be very awkward. To prevent this from
happening, you will find here some helpful phrases.

As you use polite phrases like "Nice to meet you" when you greet someone, you should not forget
similar phrases when you say goodbye to someone. There are several possibilities: you can either
wait for what your dialogue partner says and then reply the same or choose your own polite
goodbye phrase.

Programa de Bilingüismo Centro de Industria y de la Construcción

 Saludos y Despedidas

It was good to see you!

It was great to see you again!

It was nice meeting you!

Have a good day!

Enjoy!/ Have fun! (if you talk about something. that the other person is going to do)

Have a safe journey home!

Good bye!

Bye!/ Bye-bye!

See you!

See you soon/later/tomorrow/next week/on Monday!

Take care!
Centro de Industria y la Construcción – Regional
Tolima
http://www.learn-english-online.org/

Programa de Bilingüismo Centro de Industria y de la Construcción