Cã³mo Estã¡s Reply In Spanish

By Last updated: March 23, 2022

The Spanish "How Are You?" and eight More than Ways to Say It

"Hey, what's upwards?"

"How'due south it going?"

"How have you been?"

In our everyday encounters with other people, we apply these phrases over and over.

In this mail service, you'll learn viii other ways to say "How are you?" in Castilian that are a little more exciting.

I'll even provide some appropriate responses.

The Bones Greeting: ¿Cómo Estás?
Why Y'all Should Become Beyond the Nuts with "How Are You?"
"How Are Yous?" in Spanish: 8 Ways to Alter Up This Greeting
- ¿Cómo andas (tú)?
- ¿Qué me cuentas?
- ¿Cómo te va?
- ¿Cómo va todo?
- ¿Cómo van las cosas?
- ¿Qué tal?
- ¿Qué hay?
- ¿Qué pasa?

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The Bones Greeting: ¿Cómo Estás?

You take to larn the nuts before you lot can motility by them, of course.

The about basic greeting that you would utilize to ask "How are you?" to one person, in an informal setting, is:

¿Cómo estás? (How are you?)

A slight variation on this greeting is ¿Cómo estás tú? This ways exactly the same thing, merely includes the optional pronoun tú (you).

In Spanish, the style yous conjugate a verb changes depending on how many people you're addressing, and on whether you're in a formal or informal situation. In this case, the of import verb is estar (to be).

(If you're unclear on verb conjugation, check out this basic guide to conjugating the Spanish present tense.)

And so, depending on who y'all're speaking to, you may have to slightly adjust your conjugation. For each of the examples below, I'll provide the advisable pronoun in parentheses. Just like tú in the example above, these pronouns are optional and do not affect the significant of the sentence.

¿Cómo está (usted)?

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The pronoun usted refers to a singular "you lot" in a formal situation. Use this greeting when talking to a stranger, someone much older than you or someone in a position of superiority. For instance, y'all might use ¿Cómo está? when greeting your friend's grandfather, your boss, your professor, the queen of Kingdom of spain and so on.

¿Cómo están (ustedes)?

Ustedes refers to a plural "y'all." Use it when greeting two or more people at the same fourth dimension.

Across Latin America, ustedes can be used in formal or informal situations. In Spain, it's used exclusively in formal situations (similar usted).

¿Cómo estáis (vosotros)?

If you happen to be speaking Spanish in Kingdom of spain, apply vosotros when talking to a grouping of people in an informal situation, such as when you're speaking to a group of friends.

There are many means to respond to the greeting "How are yous?"

In Castilian, a safe response is:

Bien, gracias. ¿Y tú? (Fine, thanks. And y'all?)

This is a polite and unproblematic way to keep the conversation going.

Of course, if you're in a formal state of affairs or talking to more one person, you'll desire to substitute tú for usted, ustedes or vosotros where appropriate.

Why You Should Go Across the Basics with "How Are You?"

Sure, the above will go you through basic Spanish conversations. Merely why stop there? In that location are tons of ways to greet and be greeted in Spanish—it'southward a adept thought to know more than i.

Learning alternate greetings tin can allow y'all to vary your tone to suit more formal or casual situations. Y'all wouldn't greet your best friend the same way you lot would greet a client, right? Information technology's the same in Spanish—different greetings sound more natural in different company.

Plus, varying your speech patterns helps yous sound more like a native speaker. I'll bet when you talk in English, you don't constantly repeat the phrase "How are you?" Yous probably alter it up with phrases like "How's it going?" or "What's going on?" Moving across "How are you lot?" means moving beyond classroom Spanish and learning real-world Spanish.

Not to mention, learning slangy alternatives to common phrases can be a lot of fun. If yous're ever unsure well-nigh a slang term, language learner forums like the ones at WordReference can exist corking resource. You can likewise check out the pregnant of slang words with the contextual dictionary on FluentU. Once you find the significant of a new word, you lot can create a flashcard of it and see how it's used by native speakers in the accurate Spanish videos of the program's library.

Finally, it's good to expand your vocabulary because—duh!—native speakers will use these phrases when they talk to you! When they do, you'll want to understand and exist able to respond.

"How Are You?" in Spanish: 8 Ways to Change Upwards This Greeting

For each of these greetings, I'll let you know how to politely answer. You can, of form, also answer to any of these greetings past letting your conversation partner know how you're really doing.

Merely when you're talking with strangers or acquaintances, it'due south good to know how to requite a noncommittal response like "It's all good" or "Oh, nothing much."

Unclear on how to pronounce whatever of the words in this post? Forvo is a dandy resource with crowd-sourced pronunciations provided by native speakers.

¿Cómo andas (tú)?

The verb andar means "to walk" or "to go," so this greeting is similar to the English "How's it going?" It's slightly more than casual and slangy than the bones ¿Cómo estás?

Andar is a regular -ar verb, then its other conjugations are:

¿Cómo anda (usted)?

¿Cómo andan (ustedes)?

¿Cómo andáis (vosotros)?

You tin can respond to this in the aforementioned way you would respond to ¿Cómo estás? An answer like Bien (expert), Bastante bien (pretty adept) or Muy bien (very good) is appropriate.

¿Qué me cuentas?

This greeting is quite slangy. It literally translates to "What do y'all tell me?" Think of it every bit a Spanish equivalent to the English "What's going on?"

It would be a little awkward to utilize this greeting in the usted form since it'due south then breezy—but here are all of the conjugations just in example.

Forusted: ¿Qué me cuenta?

For ustedes: ¿Qué me cuentan?

For vosotros: ¿Qué me contáis?

Note here that contar is a stem-changing verb!

If someone asked you "What's going on?" in English, y'all might respond with "Oh, not much." It'south similar in Spanish. If someone asks y'all ¿Qué me cuentas? you might respond with something like:

Nada.(Nix.)

Nix en especial.(Nothing special.)

Lo normal.(The usual.)

No mucho.(Non much.)

It would audio a petty foreign to respond with something like Bien, gracias. This might be tricky to keep track of, but if you do enough, you lot'll unconsciously beginning to realize what response sounds right and what sounds bad-mannered.

¿Cómo te va?

This greeting translates to something like "How'due south information technology going?" It tin be used in formal or informal situations. In this example, to change the greeting you lot'll have to change the indirect object pronoun from te to le, les or bone.

For usted: ¿Cómo le va?

For ustedes: ¿Cómo les va?

For vosotros: ¿Cómo os va?

When responding to this, you can re-use the verb va (it goes), from the infinitiveir(to go).

Me va bien.(Information technology's going well.)

Me va mal.(It's going badly.)

Y'all tin can replace bien or mal with any other appropriate adjective you lot can think of. Some examples are espectacular (spectacular), genial (great), normal (normal), regular (simply okay) or terrible (terrible).

¿Cómo va todo?

Very similar to the concluding one, this phrasetranslates to "How's everything going?"

Luckily, in this case there are no verbs to conjugate and no indirect objects to modify around—y'all can utilize this same greeting regardless of what situation you're in.

To reply, you lot can say Va todo ___, filling in whatsoever adjective suits your mood. (See in a higher place for examples.)

¿Cómo van las cosas?

This greeting means "How are things?" Like the previous example, there is no need for conjugation here, since the verb van (they get) refers to the noun las cosas (the things).

If somebody asks yous this, you can respond with a elementary Bien (good) or Mal (bad), or you tin make a full sentence such every bit:

Las cosas van bien.(Things are going well.)

¿Qué tal?

Thisis an informal greeting to be used among friends in a casual setting. Information technology is similar to the English "What'south upwardly?"

However, unlike the English "What'due south up?" you should not answer to ¿Qué tal? with "Nothing much" or any variant thereof. Instead, respond with an describing word—bien, mal, regular, genial, terrible,etc.—similar you would answer to¿Cómo estás?

¿Qué hay?

This super informal greeting literally translates to "What is there?" and should only exist used in very casual, friendly situations. Y'all can think of it every bit a shortening of ¿Qué hay de nuevo? (What's new?). Again, no conjugations to worry about here.

A good, appropriately casual response to this greeting would be something like Todo bien (all proficient) or No me quejo (tin't complain).

¿Qué pasa?

This Castilian greeting has crossed over into English-language slang, so you may already be familiar with it! Information technology's another super colloquial way to inquire "What'due south up?" or "What's going on?"

A normal response would be some variant ofNadaorLo normal.See the section on¿Qué me cuentas?for some examples of adept responses.

The side by side time you take to greet someone in Spanish, move out of your comfort zone!

You wouldn't only repeat "How are you?" over and over once again in your native linguistic communication, and there'south no reason to practise so in Spanish.

Native speakers will option upward on your varied vocabulary, and it'll make you lot audio much more natural.

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you tin can accept anywhere. Click hither to go a re-create. (Download)