Let’s be real here, every conversation starts with some sort of greeting, right? It could be the simple head nod with the casual “Sup?” or the more elaborate “Good evening, Sir!”. Obviously this is the case in Germany to. People don’t walk around saying “Guten Tag” in every situation. So let’s have some fun going over a few different Greetings.
Hallo (hah-LOH)
First things first, the simple Hello. When do you personally use Hello? Well, to be frank, I don’t see a lot of people using it anymore, it usually seems to be a more shy greeting or a casual greeting amongst strangers. It’s very simple and frankly, though not used often anymore, it’s really simple and can be used pretty much anywhere.
Guten Tag (GOO-ten tahk)
This is the one everybody knows. People have heard of “Guten Tag” and literally translates to “Good Day”. It works really well in a casual setting during the day, but will work great in a more professional environment as well. Especially if you add on a Herr (mister) or Frau (ma’am, miss etc) plus their last name. Such as “Guten Tag Herr Schmitt” (Good day Mr. Schmitt) .
BTW: I won’t go into detail on the others but “Guten Morgen!” (GOO-ten MOR-gen) and “Guten Abend” (GOO-ten AH-bend) are “Good Morning” and “Good Evening” respectively and all three greetings can be interchanged, just obviously you want to make sure it’s the right time of day.
Wie gehts (vee gayts?)
This one is tricky. Translated its just the short version of “Wie geht es dir?” and literally means “How goes it”. As a greeting though, you will use this quite a bit around the younger crowd, buddies etc. as the German version of “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?”
Servus (SEHR-voos) and Grüß Gott! (gruus got)
If you go down south and visit any part of the Bavaria, you will run into people addressing you or greeting you with these. “Servus” is a really simple southern Greeting around friends. There is no direct translation for it, just know whats it’s used for. Similiar to that is the “Grüß Gott” which literally means “Greet God” but really is just another casual greeting used in southern Germany.
