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Lesson 1:
Essential Expressions
- Vocabulary 1
- Matching Bubbles: Being Polite
- Grammar: Greetings and Formality
- Go Further: How are you?
- Vocabulary 2
- Multiple Choice: Hello Goodbye
- Grammar: More Formality and Gender
- Go Further: Some New Punctuation
- Fill In: Keep in mind who you are speaking to.
- Conversation: Hola, Carlos.
- Conversation: Te presento a mi amigo Joaquín.
- Sentence Builder: Introductions
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Greetings and Formality
Greetings
There are different greetings in Spanish depending on the time of day.
| morning | buenos días |
| afternoon | buenas tardes |
| evening | buenas noches |
| any time of day | hola |
There are also different ways of saying good-bye, though these don’t depend on time of day:
| good-bye | adiós |
| see you later | hasta luego |
Finally, you learned how to ask how a person is feeling:
| How’s it going? | ¿Qué tal? |
| How are you? (informal) | ¿Cómo estás tú? |
| How are you? (formal) | ¿Cómo está (usted)? |
Tú and usted
As you’ve just seen, in Spanish there is a formal and an informal way of referring to the person that you’re talking to. Tú is used to refer to a person in an informal way. Use tú when talking to your friends, members of your family, or people who are younger than you. Use the more respectful usted when talking to someone who is older or who you don’t know very well.
¿Cómo estás (tú)? is the question you would ask when speaking to a friend or someone who’s younger than you. Use the expression ¿Cómo está (usted)? when talking to an adult or someone you don’t know very well.
Again:
| Informal | Formal |
| tú (you) | usted (you) |
| ¿Cómo estás (tú)? (How are you?) | ¿Cómo está (usted)? (How are you?) |