Check out today’s Teatime Titbit: Tuesday Teaser: How many ways can you greet somebody (informally)
Back to basics you’re probably thinking! I’ll give that post a miss, we did all the greetings stuff back in school. But hold your horses! Did you get the full story, or just that “Hi, how are you?” “Yes, I am fine, thank you” BS (bullshit)?
Here are a few more:
- “How are you doing?” Spoken = “How r u doin?”
- “How’s it going?” Spoken = “How’s it goin?”
- “How’s life / How’s things & How’s tricks?” (bad grammar)
- “Alright?”
- “What’s up” (for our American friends)
- “How are you keeping?” Spoken = How r u keepin? (especially if you haven’t seen the person for a while – same goes for the next one)
- “(Long time, no see.) What have you been up to?” = Wie läufts bei dir?
Now, the most important thing. Please, please, please don’t go into a 5 minutes rant about how badly life is treating you – be positive and ask back !!!!!
”Splendid / smashing / brilliant, thanks and you?”
“Couldn’t be better / never been better!”
“Hunky-dory“ = bestens
“It’s going nicely“ = Es läuft wie geschmiert!
If you know the person quite well, you could venture into the realms of medium to negative vibes, but take my advice – avoid at all costs. Let’s face it, nobody likes a whiner.
“Can’t complain!“ = Kann mich nicht beschwerden
“So-so”= Es geht so
“Plodding on”= make very slow progress = (rough translation) Es muß ja.
The last two are a little old fashioned but you will still hear them and I do my best to keep them alive, by using them regularly.
“Tickety-boo“= in bester Ordnung
“Fair to middling“= eher mittelprächtig
Please join me & save them.
“hold your horses” (Immer mit der Ruhe!), rant (Schimpftirade), to venture (etw wagen), realms (Bereiche), whiner (Jammerlappen)