Feel nervous when speaking English? Try to hide whenever you see a foreigner? If that is you, then your fear of speaking English is stopping you from getting better. To fight that fear, this post will show you how to start a normal conversation, starting with saying Hello and Goodbye in English.

Ways to say Hello in English

If you can only say a simple word ‘Hello’ to a person, that will be boring. So how to say ‘Hi’ more naturally and keep the conversation going?

1. Step 1: Greetings

When you meet a person, you can say:

Hello/ Hi 
Good morning/ Good afternoon/ Good evening

2. Step 2: Introducing yourself (when you first meet someone)

– Ask and answer about name:

Ask: What’s your name?

Answer: My name is John/ You can call me John. Nice to meet you.

– Ask and answer about hometown or living location:

Ask: Where are you from?/Where do you come from?

Answer: I’m from/I come from Philippines

 

Ask: Where do you live?

Answer: I live in Beijing

3. Step 3: How are you?

You can continue by asking about their feeling and condition:

How are you today?

How is your day?

Some ways to answer these questions:

• I’m fine/very well/good, thank you. And you?
• I’m so so/not bad. And you?
• Not so good, I’m tired.
• ….

In order to start the conversation more naturally, you can click the image below and speak along the video. Let’s be careful with your voice and make more ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ in it to make it sound more natural:

Ways to say Goodbye in English

The easiest way that most of us will know is ‘Goodbye’ or ‘Bye-bye’. However, there are many other ways to make your Goodbye become more natural and interesting

– Use ‘see you‘:

See you then, bye 
Goodbye, see you next week 
See you later, bye bye 
See you again, bye bye

– Use ‘take care‘: especially when you are saying Goodbye to someone who is going to leave or go somewhere.

Take care, bye bye 
Goodbye daddy, take care!

– Use together with a wish:

Goodbye. Have a nice/good day

It’s time to listen to the video below and let’s see how people say Goodbye in different ways:

Exercise

Fill in the blank and comment your answer below to get support from us

1. A: Good morning

You: ……………………….

A: I’m fine, thank you. And you?

You: ……………………….

 

2. A: Hi, I’m Sophie. What’s your name?

You: ……………………….

A: I’m from Canada