Learn How to Greet Someone in Chinese 👋🏽 Top 10 Chinese Greetings

Don’t just use 你好 ! Today we teach you some of the best Chinese Greetings and how to use them!

The most common Chinese greeting is 你好 nǐ hǎo (hello), and 您好 nín hǎo is its respectful, formal version for bosses, elders and your partner’s parents.

In everyday life, native speakers often prefer situational or casual greetings: 早 zǎo in the morning, 吃了吗 chīle ma (have you eaten?), 好久不见 hǎojiǔ bújiàn (long time no see), 喂 wéi on the phone, or 哈喽 hā lóu among friends.

We want to get you speaking Chinese in a way that sounds natural, and that means learning more than the quintessential 你好 nǐ hǎo (hello) or 你好吗 nǐ hǎo ma (how are you?).

As a matter of fact, using these very basic expressions in certain situations may sound weird or unnatural to a native speaker.

If you want to impress your Chinese friends or just want to make a great impression when visiting China, you should learn how and when to use the different ways to greet people in Chinese.

This guide will cover 10 essential greetings in Chinese that you need to master before visiting China.

Chinese Greetings #1 | 你好 nǐ hǎo / 您好 nín hǎo // Hello and Formal Hello

Chinese Greetings #2 | 大家好 dàjiā hǎo // Hello Everyone

Chinese Greetings #3 | 最近你怎么样？zuìjìn nǐ zěnmeyàng // How Have You Been?

Chinese Greetings #4 | 吃了吗 chīle ma / 吃过饭了没有？chīguò fàn le méiyǒu // Have You Eaten?

Chinese Greetings #5 | 喂 wéi // Hello on the Phone

Chinese Greetings #6 | 早上好 zǎoshang hǎo / 早 zǎo // Good Morning

Chinese Greetings #7 | 下午好 xiàwǔ hǎo / 晚上好 wǎnshang hǎo // Good Afternoon and Good Evening

Chinese Greetings #8 | 好久不见 hǎojiǔ bújiàn // Long Time No See

Chinese Greetings #9 | 去哪儿？qù nǎr // Where Are You Going?

Chinese Greetings #10 | 嘿 hēi / 嗨 hāi / 哈喽 hā lóu / 哈罗 hā luō // Casual Hey, Hi and Hello

Beyond Hello // Nice to Meet You, Thank You and Goodbye

Chinese Greetings #1 | 你好 nǐ hǎo / 您好 nín hǎo // Hello and Formal Hello

你好 nǐ hǎo is probably the first phrase all Chinese students are taught on their first day of class.

你好 nǐ hǎo is the most basic way of saying ‘Hello’ and literally means “you good.” Want more options? We’ve rounded up 20 ways to say hello in a separate guide.

FACT – Although this Chinese greeting is still correct and relatively common, most Chinese speakers seldom use it as a way to greet their friends, colleagues, or even acquaintances.

This is especially true for the younger generation, who consider this phrase to be antiquated and opt for more colloquial greetings (more on this below). 

您好 nín hǎo is a more formal variation of 你好 nǐ hǎo that is used to address people who are your superiors in a professional or familial setting.

If you want to show respect for your boss or your significant other’s parents, you would want to use 您好 nín hǎo instead of 你好 nǐ hǎo.

您好 nín hǎo is also a very common way for businesses, computer software, phone apps, websites, etc. to address their users. So when you sign up for any of the most common Chinese apps, they will likely greet you with a respectful 您好 nín hǎo.

👉 Want to practice your basic Chinese? Check out our Chinese language quizzes!

Chinese Greetings #2 | 大家好 dàjiā hǎo // Hello Everyone

大家好 dàjiā hǎo is a variation of 你好 nǐ hǎo where 你 (you) nǐ is replaced with 大家 (everyone) dàjiā.

This changes the meaning from an individual ‘Hello’ to a ‘Hello everyone’. 

Unlike 你好 nǐ hǎo, 大家好 dàjiā hǎo is still a very common way to greet large groups of people and even large crowds.

If you find yourself in a situation where you have to give a speech to a Chinese audience, you will certainly want to start with 大家好 dàjiā hǎo!

BONUS: You can replace 大家 (everyone) dàjiā with almost any title or profession to make a more personalized greeting, such as 老师好 (hello teacher) lǎoshī hǎo or 朋友们好 (hello friends) péngyǒumen hǎo.

Chinese Greetings #3 | 最近你怎么样？zuìjìn nǐ zěnmeyàng // How Have You Been?

Most Chinese students are familiar with 你好吗 nǐ hǎo ma, the most commonly taught way of asking how someone is doing (‘How are you?’).

The textbook reply is 我很好，谢谢 wǒ hěn hǎo, xièxie, but in real life you’ll hear relaxed answers just as often:

These replies work for all the ‘how have you been’ questions below as well.

However, the most common way of actually asking your friends how they are doing is 最近你怎么样？ zuìjìn nǐ zěnme yàng, which translates to “How have you been recently?”

Colloquially, it’s used more like “How have you been?”.

As a matter of fact, 最近 zuìjìn can be used before pretty much any other question that you’d like to ask your friends when you want an update from the last time you saw them. For example: 

• 最近好吗？ zuìjìn hǎo ma | Everything good lately?
• 最近你忙不忙？ zuìjìn nǐ máng bù máng | Have you been busy lately?
• 最近干什么呢？ zuìjìn gànshénme ne | What have you been doing recently?

Any of these Chinese greetings would suffice in most circumstances.

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Chinese Greetings #4 | 吃了吗 chīle ma / 吃过饭了没有？chīguò fàn le méiyǒu // Have You Eaten?

吃了吗? chīle ma and 吃过饭了没有？ chīguò fàn le méiyǒu are two very common ways of asking someone how they’re doing.

The questions literally ask if you have eaten already, but whoever is asking this question probably does not want to know if you’ve actually eaten or not.

Asking 吃了吗 chīle ma is simply a way of asking someone if they’re okay or not because food is such an important part of life in Chinese culture.

After all, how could you not be okay if you have just eaten some Chinese food?

The most common way of answering this question is:

• 吃了，你呢？ (I already ate, what about you?) chīle, nǐ ne?
• 还没有，你呢？ (I have not eaten yet, what about you?) hái méiyǒu, nǐ ne?

NOTE – You probably want to stick to the first response unless you actually want to make plans to find some food.

Chinese Greetings #5 | 喂 wéi // Hello on the Phone

When answering the phone, greeting rules are a little bit different.

The first thing you should say when picking up the phone is 喂 wéi, which you can then follow with a 你好 nǐ hǎo (or not).

💡 Dictionaries list 喂 as wèi (fourth tone), but on the phone almost everyone says a rising wéi. A short, falling wèi sounds more like calling out ‘hey!’ to get someone’s attention.

Chinese Greetings #6 | 早上好 zǎoshang hǎo / 早 zǎo // Good Morning

The proper way of saying ‘Good morning” to someone is 早上好 zǎoshang hǎo.

However, if you’re meeting friends, coworkers, classmates, or people you see regularly, then a simple 早 zǎo is enough. 

Though 早 zǎo by itself just means ‘early’, in the right context it is implied to mean ‘Good morning’.

So, if you’re walking into an 8:00am Chinese class, you may want to say 早 zǎo to greet your classmates. 

Chinese Greetings #7 | 下午好 xiàwǔ hǎo / 晚上好 wǎnshang hǎo // Good Afternoon and Good Evening

In the afternoon, the greeting is 下午好 xiàwǔ hǎo (good afternoon). You’ll hear it most from shop and hotel staff, presenters and teachers, while friends usually skip it and say 你好 or 嗨.

If you’re meeting someone after sunset, then you’ll want to say 晚上好 wǎnshang hǎo for ‘Good evening’.

晚上 wǎnshang means night or evening, so adding 好 hǎo at the end makes it a greeting that implies that you hope they have a good evening. 

Be careful not to use 晚上好 wǎnshang hǎo to someone when you say goodbye and want to wish them a good night!

When saying farewell to someone for the day, you should instead use 晚安 – wǎn’ān.

Chinese Greetings #8 | 好久不见 hǎojiǔ bújiàn // Long Time No See

好久不见 is a super common way of greeting someone you haven’t seen in a while.

好久不见 hǎojiǔ bújiàn is an everyday set phrase rather than a true chengyu, and the English ‘long time no see’ is widely thought to be a word-for-word borrowing of it.

It’s pronounced hǎojiǔ bújiàn. 💡 不 bù changes to a rising bú before a fourth tone, like 见 jiàn, so that’s how you’ll hear it said.

FACT – You should only use this when you actually haven’t seen someone for a longer time than usual.

How long exactly varies depending on the context, but you shouldn’t use it when it hasn’t been a long time since you last saw them.

Chinese Greetings #9 | 去哪儿？qù nǎr // Where Are You Going?

去哪儿? qù nǎr | This question means “Where are you going?”

You would use this when you unexpectedly bump into a classmate on campus or a friend on the street.

Though it might seem a little nosey to foreigners, this question is totally harmless and normal in daily life in China.

Chinese Greetings #10 | 嘿 hēi / 嗨 hāi / 哈喽 hā lóu / 哈罗 hā luō // Casual Hey, Hi and Hello

Transliterations (Chinese words that imitate the sound of English greetings) are extremely common ways of casually greeting friends, colleagues, and classmates, particularly among the younger generations. 

• 嘿 hēi = hey
• 嗨 hāi = hi
• 哈喽 hā lóu = hello
• 哈罗 hā luō = hello

Though it might seem a little counter-intuitive for an English speaker who is trying to learn Chinese, saying 哈喽 hā lóu instead of 你好 nǐ hǎo will actually make your Chinese sound a lot more natural in contemporary China.

These greetings in Chinese are best reserved for casual, relaxed settings and are perfect ways to greet someone through WeChat or Chinese social media. 

Beyond Hello // Nice to Meet You, Thank You and Goodbye

A greeting rarely stands alone. Once you’ve said hello, these are the phrases that carry a first conversation all the way to the goodbye.

Meeting Someone for the First Time

TIP💡 Meeting someone senior, like a client or your partner’s parents? Swap 你 for 您 and say 很高兴认识您 hěn gāoxìng rènshi nín.

Saying Goodbye in Chinese

再见 zàijiàn works in any situation. 拜拜 bàibài is what you’ll hear most among friends, at the end of phone calls and in WeChat chats. Late at night, finish with 晚安 wǎn’ān instead.

A Short Greeting Conversation

Here’s how these phrases fit together when Anna meets a new classmate:

We hope you found this useful… and if you did, there’s plenty more excellent and related content which includes:

• Over 100 essential beginner Mandarin phrases
• Discover the most common measure words in Chinese
• Unearth our extensive grammar bank to learn the basics of Chinese
• Greetings in other languages: How Are You in Japanese, Hello in Korean and 8 Ways to Say Hi in Spanish

BONUS | Quickfire Quiz

Just to make sure those didn’t go in one ear, and out the other, here’s our quick quiz to help you.

Above we taught you 10 basic Chinese greetings, now let’s see how many you remember.

The quiz takes seconds to finish and your result is shown instantly on this page, good luck!

Time's up

Love learning new languages? Why not check out our guide on the key Japanese greetings you need to learn!

Japanese, just like Chinese, is a beautiful language to learn, come and see for yourself!

Greetings in Chinese // FAQ’s

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