Using Greeting and Parting Expressions - Part 1

Learn how to use expressions for greetings and partings

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Lesson Transcript

¡Hola! Hello! My name is Brenda Romaniello, and I’m your Spanish teacher.

Today, we’re going to have a look at some greetings and some parting expressions in Spanish.

Let’s start with some vocabulary for greetings in Spanish.

We’re gonna start with…

Buenos días

Buenos días significa "Good morning"

It means "Good morning."

And we use it in Spanish between 6am and 11am in the morning.

Ok? So if you're between 6am and 11am and you want to greet someone in Spanish, you say Buenos días.

Let's continue with the next one.

Buenas

Buenas means... it's definitely more casual than saying Buenas días, and this one means "Morning" or "Evening."

Sí, and it means basically that. When we want to greet someone and we can use it, as you can see here, throughout the entire day. But be careful, this is very informal, this is very casual so depends on what situation you're in in Spanish. So for example, if you're talking to the Queen, the president, or the Pope, maybe don't say buenas, perhaps; address them as Buenos días, yes, if it is in the morning. because it's a little bit informal or causal, but you will notice when you speak to Spanish speakers, that we just say buenas, buenas, and that's really cool, it's kinda like a "What's up?" or "Morning," "Evening," etc.

Another one we can use all throughout the day, and I"m sure that you know this one, it's hola.

Hola

Hola means "Hello," and again, you can use it throughout the day.

Let's move on to the next one, which is...

Buenas noches

Buenas noches significa, it means "Good evening."

You can say "Good evening" from 7pm until midnight.

And also Buenas noches, I'm gonna give you this one as a bonus expression, that we'll talk about in a minute, when we talk about parting expressions in Spanish, how you can say goodbye to a Spanish speaker.

Ok, so remember:

Buenos días

Buenas

Hola

Buenas noches

Ok? So "good morning," "morning" or "hello," and "good evening."

Let's talk now about some parting expressions, this is simply to say goodbye in Spanish.

We can say...

Adiós

Adiós significa "Bye"

Yes, and we can use it all throughout the day, it doesn't matter if you're saying goodbye to someone in the morning, afternoon, or evening, you can say Adiós in Spanish..

The other one...

Nos vemos

And as you can see, this one means "See you again" or "See you later."

Ok? "See you later," "See you again," nos vemos.

Nos vemos.

And again, you can use it at anytime of the day in Spanish to say goodbye.

And the last one...

Que descanses

Que descanses, it's a beautiful phrase, it's a beautiful expression, I love it, it's so caring, so loving; and it means "Have a good rest"

"Have a good rest"

So this is specifically used at night between 7pm and midnight. Well, someone are up until 2 in the morning; my mom calls me sometimes at 2 in the morning in Argentina, and I'm like, "what are you doing up, woman?"

Yes, so that happens, in the Latin world, we go to bed a lot later, I believe, than, say for example, English countries. But it's a beautiful expression that you can use to say Goodnight, or "Have a nice rest," when you go to sleep or when someone is going to sleep, or retiring for the night, you can say Que descanses.

Que descanses.

Excellent! And I promised you I was going to give you two expressions for the price of one, and here you have it.

Buenas noches means, as we had a look into before, we said Buenas noches means "Good evening"; but it also means "Good night." So if you want to say "Good night" or "Good night, have a nice rest," you can say Buenas noches, que descanses.

Ok? So how do you know which one is which? Well, usually when you greet someone and it's the evening, yes, you will say Buenas noches, yes? "Good evening."

And then when you have been talking to a person and you're ready to go and it's night time, then you know it means "Good night." And of course, you can say Que descanses, "Have a nice rest."

Muy bien, ahora vamos a ver un dialogo, sí?

Now we're going to have a look and listen to a dialogue. Two friends are talking, let's have a look.

We can say...

Buenos días.

Buenas.

Buenos días.

Buenas.

You can reply to Buenos días with another Buenos días; or you can say Hola, or you can say Buenas, as we have the example here.

Now, we come to the part where I had to do some drawing for you. So this is a sun, un sol. And this is a moon. Yes? So that's a luna. Luna, "moon."

Ok, so let's have a look at some vocabulary for greetings at different times of the day. So in the morning, yes, we would say “Good morning,” we say it in español, Buenos días.

In the afternoon, we say Buenas tardes.

Buenas tardes

And in the evening, we say Buenas noches.

Buenas noches.

Muy bien, very good! And there's something I want us to have a look in to. The first thing that I want to analyse is the fact that, have you noticed that we say Buenas tardes and Buenas noches, but we say Buenos días?

And I know that días has an A there, which usually means that this word is feminine in Spanish. Días is one of the exceptions of the rule, días is actually a masculino word, that's why we have to say Buenos días, ok?

Because días is masculino and it's plural, so in this case, we say Buenos días.

Ok?

And Buenas tardes, tardes is femenino, that's why we say Buenas tardes.

And noches is also femenino, so that's why we say Buenas noches.

Remember also that we can say Buenas throughout the day, and that means "Evening," "What's up," "Morning."

And "Hello," of course, Hola, we can say Hola throughout the entire day, at any time.

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