How to Say Hi in German — and What to Say After That

 

The easy answer: Hallo. Pronounced exactly how it looks — HAH-loh. It works in almost every situation, with almost anyone, at any time of day. If you only learn one German greeting before your trip, this is the one.

But if you've arrived here, you're probably looking for a bit more than that. Because hallo gets you through the door and immediately into the part nobody quite prepares for — someone responds, and now you need to know what comes next.

German greetings are slightly more layered than English ones, mostly because of the formality system built into the language. German has two words for "you" — du (informal, used with friends, peers, children) and Sie (formal, used with strangers, older people, anyone you're addressing respectfully). The greeting you choose signals which register you're operating in, and getting it wrong can create a noticeable awkwardness — not catastrophic, but worth knowing about before you arrive.

For most travel situations, you'll be using the formal register without thinking about it. When you walk into a shop, a hotel, a restaurant — Guten Tag (GOO-ten tahk, good day) or Hallo are both appropriate and safe. Guten Morgen (GOO-ten MOR-gen) in the morning, Guten Abend (GOO-ten AH-bent) in the evening. These are the greetings that cover the vast majority of real travel encounters.

One thing worth knowing specifically about Germany: greeting people when you enter small spaces is expected. Walking into a small shop, a waiting room, an elevator — a quiet Hallo or Guten Tag when you enter is normal and polite. Skipping it reads as rude in a way it might not in English-speaking contexts. This small habit makes a noticeable difference in how interactions go.

After the greeting, the most common follow-up you'll encounter is Wie geht's? (vee gayts) — how's it going? — or the more formal Wie geht es Ihnen? (vee gayt es EE-nen). The standard response is Gut, danke (goot DAN-ke) — fine, thank you — which works in every context. Sehr gut, danke (zayr goot DAN-ke) — very well, thank you — is slightly warmer and equally natural.

For saying goodbye: Auf Wiedersehen (owf VEE-der-zayn) is the formal farewell, literally "until we see each other again." Tschüss (chüss) is the casual version, used with people you've warmed up to or in informal settings. In southern Germany and Austria you'll also hear Servus (SER-voos), which does double duty as both hello and goodbye.

I worked through all of this — and a lot more — using the English-German Phrasebook for Travel and Everyday Situations by Sophie Redmond, which covers greetings and every other real travel situation with pronunciation guides written in plain syllables so you can actually say the words without a German background. The phrasebook goes from basic greetings through airports, hotels, restaurants, transport, shopping, and everything in between. You can find it on Amazon here.

The phonetic guides are what make it immediately usable. Knowing that Auf Wiedersehen is spelled one way and sounds completely different is one thing — having it written out as owf VEE-der-zayn is what lets you actually say it in front of someone without stumbling. That's the gap most travel language resources don't close, and this one does.

Hallo. HAH-loh. Now you know where to start. Everything after that is just a few more phrases away.