Learn all you need to know about greetings in German
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Intro |
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| Michael: How do you greet someone at different times of the day? |
| Igor: And can I replace them with time-neutral ones? |
| Michael: At GermanPod101.com, we get these questions a lot, so let’s help answer them by giving you some examples. In the following situation, Sasha Lee returns home from a party night around 5 am when Mark Lee greets her with "Good morning!" |
| Mark Lee: Guten Morgen! |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Guten Morgen! |
| Sasha Lee: Gute Nacht… |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Guten Morgen! |
| Michael: "Good morning!" |
| Sasha Lee: Gute Nacht… |
| Michael: "Good night..." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, we will talk about time-sensitive German greetings. German, similar to English, has some greetings that are used depending on the time of the day, or |
| Igor: Tageszeit. |
| Michael: Germans mostly differentiate between three particular times of the day, using the following greetings: |
| Igor: Guten Morgen |
| Michael: meaning “Good morning,” and being used in the early morning hours. |
| Igor: Guten Tag |
| Michael: meaning literally “Good day,” which is used starting from noon to the evening at around 6pm,and the last one is |
| Igor: Guten Abend |
| Michael: meaning “Good evening.” The last greeting is used starting from around 6 pm until the end of the day. |
| As you can hear, there are some similarities between English and German when it comes to time-sensitive greetings. With the exception of “good afternoon,” German and English share the same greetings, and even though Germans don’t use the word “afternoon” and replace it with “day” instead, the concept remains the same. It’s easy, isn’t it? |
| But what if we’d like to replace those greetings with a time-neutral one? |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: For this, let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Mark says "Good morning!" |
| Igor: Guten Morgen! |
| Michael: As we learned before, “Good morning” is used in the early morning hours. As a rule of thumb, we could say we use it from 5 am until noon, but there is also one more possibility for how Mark could greet his daughter, and this would be a friendly |
| Igor: Hallo |
| Michael: meaning “hello,” |
| And also the English, |
| Igor: Hi |
| Michael: meaning just “Hi,” is becoming a popular greeting in Germany. |
| You can use those greetings no matter the time of the day, but remember that those are considered informal. Even though “hallo” is used more often in formal situations nowadays, we wouldn’t recommend using it in serious formal situations. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Sasha says "Good night..." |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Igor: Gute Nacht… |
| Michael: meaning “Good night.” Well, this is not a greeting per se, but due to the similarity to the previous three greetings, it’s important to mention here. This actually works exactly like the English “Good night,” being a form of saying good-bye, when you’re seeing someone at night. For Sasha, the previous day still didn’t end, and she came back home with the intention of going to bed. This is why she answered her father with this phrase. There are two more ways to say good-bye in German, which are |
| Igor: Auf Wiedersehen, |
| Michael: which is the formal way to say “Good-bye,” and |
| Igor: Tschüss |
| Michael: which is the informal way to say “Good-bye.” |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In today’s lesson, we learned that German, similar to English, has three time-related greetings, which are |
| Igor: Guten Morgen |
| Michael: for the morning between 5 am and noon, |
| Igor: Guten Tag |
| Michael: for the afternoon starting from noon to 6 pm, |
| Igor: Guten Abend |
| Michael: for the evening from 6 pm, and one informal greeting, which is time-neutral, and this is |
| Igor: Hallo. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: There’s one more thing you should remember when it comes to time related greetings. Before, we covered the formal or written language. In colloquial German, however, you can drop the adjective “good,” or |
| Igor: Guten |
| Michael: and leave only the time of the day as a greeting. So, for example, instead of |
| Igor: Guten Morgen, |
| Michael: you could just say |
| Igor: Morgen |
| Michael: literally meaning “morning.” Instead of |
| Igor: Guten Tag, |
| Michael: you could say |
| Igor: Tag |
| Michael: literally meaning “day.” And the last one is |
| Igor: Abend |
| Michael: literally meaning “evening.” Also, here you might experience some people adding an “n” in front of the word, so we get |
| Igor: ‘n Abend |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: German is a language that consists of many different dialects. Depending on where you go, you might not understand the people talking to you, even as a native speaker, so it’s also very natural that these dialects all have their own greetings. We’ll have a look at some of them now. Let’s start in the north, in the Hamburg area you will hear people greeting each other with |
| Igor: Moin |
| Michael: Which is based on the German word for “morning.” Sometimes, you will also hear people repeat this twice saying |
| Igor: Moin Moin. |
| Michael: Even though it’s based on the time-sensitive greeting |
| Igor: Guten Morgen, |
| Michael: North Germans will use it throughout the day, no matter what time of the day it is! |
| Our next greeting is very common in western Germany, |
| Igor: Tach |
| Michael: meaning “day,” and coming from |
| Igor: Guten Tag. |
| Michael: Here, the “good” is dropped completely, and the “g” of “Tag” changes into a “-ch.” Also, here it’s based on a time-sensitive greeting, but you can use it for the whole day. |
| Now, let’s stay in west Germany, specifically the Frankfurt area, where |
| Igor: Guuden |
| Michael: is very common. This greeting is also based on our formal greetings from the beginning, but, this time, the term describing the time of day is dropped, and only |
| Igor: Guten |
| Michael: meaning “good” remains. This greeting is also time-neutral. |
| If we go towards the south, we will reach the catholic Bavaria, where people greet each other saying |
| Igor: Grüß Gott |
| Michael: literally meaning “greet god.” You will hear this throughout the day. |
| Also in southern Germany and in Austria, which is also a German speaking country, people commonly greet each other with |
| Igor: Servus |
| Michael: In those areas, |
| Igor: servus |
| Michael: is replacing the informal |
| Igor: Hallo |
| Michael: In Switzerland, where German is one of the official languages, you will hear people saying, |
| Igor: Grüezi |
| Michael: coming from |
| Igor: Grüß euch |
| Michael: meaning “greet you.” This is also a time-neutral greeting. |
| The last one is |
| Igor: Na? |
| Michael: which can’t be translated literally, but in English we might just say “ ‘sup?” |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Igor: Tschüsschen! |
| Michael: See you soon!" |
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