MEETING PEOPLE
English Greeting Expressions
There are many ways of greeting people, both formal and informal. The speaker’s task is to choose the appropriate one for the situation. It is also
useful to know lots of different ones so as to not repeat yourself when you meet a number of people at the same time. As with any other aspect,
you need to be careful about using informal expressions with people who you do not know well or whose rank or status is higher than yours.
General greetings (Formal)
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Hello!
How are you?
How are you doing?
How is everything?
How’s everything going?
How have you been keeping?
I trust that everything is well.
General greetings (Informal)
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Hi.
What’s up?
Good to see you.
How are things (with you)?
How’s it going?
How’s life been treating you?
Greeting a person you haven’t seen for a long time (Formal)
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It has been a long time.
It’s been too long.
What have you been up to all these years?
It’s always a pleasure to see you.
How long has it been?
I’m so happy to see you again.
Greeting a person you haven’t seen for a long time (Informal)
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How come I never see you?
It’s been such a long time.
Long time no see.
Where have you been hiding?
It’s been ages since we last met.
Expressing Goodbyes and Farewells in English
There are many ways of saying good-bye, just as there are many of saying hello, and it is important to use an expression of the appropriate tone
and register. In the end, it’s all up to your judgement but remember that using a very formal expression with someone who is your friend, as it
may sound sarcastic.
Simple good-byes (Formal)
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Good-bye
Stay in touch.
It was nice meeting you.
I hope to see you soon.
Simple good-byes (Informal)
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Bye.
See you.
Talk to you later.
Catch up with you later.
Nice seeing you.
Leaving a place (Formal)
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I have to leave here by noon.
Is it okay if we leave your home at 9pm?
What do you say we leave work a little earlier today?
Would you mind if I leave the dinner before it ends?
I need to depart for the airport in one hour.
Leaving a place (Informal)
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I got to go now.
I’ll be leaving from the office in 20 minutes.
How about we jet off to the shops now?
I’m afraid I have to head off now.
Let’s get off work early.
Weekends - Asking about what people did?
People often like to ask each other how they spent their holidays or weekend. There are a number of ways to both ask and answer questions about
it.
How was...?
How was your weekend?
It was lovely. How was yours?
It was terrible.
It was nice.
A bit boring.
(great)
(really bad)
(fine)
(not very interesting)
Link words: then / after that
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We had a drink. Then we went to the cinema.
OR We had a drink, and then we went to the cinema.
I went shopping. After that I met my sister.
OR I went shopping, and after that, I met my sister.
Anyway, so anyway
In spoken English, you use anyway or so anyway when you want to begin the next part of the story, or go back to then main story.
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Janet didn’t know about it. So anyway, we got in the helicopter, and…
We drank the champagne. Anyway, we landed and…
Realize, remember, find out
The past perfect is often used after the verbs realize, remember and find out.
Hesitation Strategies - Conversation Time Fillers
Often we want to give ourselves thinking time before we answer a question, especially if we don’t understand it! Here are four techniques:
Techniques
Examples
Pretend you haven’t heard Pardon?
Advantages
Disadvantages
Simple – only one word to Everyone does it.
remember.
Repeat the question
Lots of thinking time.
Use delaying noises
Use it depends
Sorry?
Eh?
You mean…what is fortyfive divided by nine?
Well…
Um…
Er…
It depends.
It depends on (the
situation).
Sorry? You want to know
what I think about this?
Well…um…it depends,
really.
Can you remember the
question?
You can use them several If you use them too
times in the same
often you sound stupid.
sentence.
You will sound intelligent. You can only use it when
(Stroke your chin at the
there is more than one
same time).
possible answer.
Don’t forget that you can use more than one technique.
Getting to know you! Polite topics when meeting for the first time
There are certain topics that are polite to discuss when getting to know someone. Here are some of them:
Talking about your background
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Originally I’m from….
I was (born and) brought up in…
I come from a (sporty/musical) family.
My proudest moment was…-ing
I’ve always dreamt of –ing/ wanted to +verb
Describing your language ability
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I’m fluent in Polish.
I speak Spanish reasonably well.
I can get by in Portuguese.
I speak French but it is a bit rusty.
I know a few words of Japanese.
I wish I could speak Italian.
like, such as, and that sort of thing
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I like music such as opera, choral music, and classical music.
I really love modern music like house, rap, reggae, and hip hop.
After one or two examples, we can use an expression meaning ‘et cetera’.
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I’m fond of opera, and that sort of thing.
I like jazz, rock, and that sort of thing.
Showing a lot of interest
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Wow!
Really?
(That’s) interesting!
(That’s) fantastic
Paraphrasing Expressions
Paraphrasing means repeating things in a different way. You use the technique to:
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check that you have understood what someone means.
emphasize a point, or make sure that your meaning is clear. This is useful when speaking to people whose first language is not English.
Introducing paraphrasing
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o
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So you mean….
What you mean is…
What you’re saying is…
So what you mean to say is…
Let me get this clear…
Let me get this straight,…