Lesson 4: How are you?
Expressions
After saying hello, it’s time to ask the persons how they are. It is quite simple, except for when you have to address the person.
In English, it’s always ‘how are you’. The you is the same if you say it to one or more persons, and if it’s someone you know or someone you don’t know. In German, it both changes according to the person and the politeness form.
So it’s:
- single and informal: Wie geht’s? or Wie geht es dir?
- formal (both single and plural): Wie geht es Ihnen?
- plural and informal: Wie geht es euch?
Es you remember from the first lesson, it’s ‘it’, wie means how and geht means goes, from the verb gehen (= to go).
Now it’s time to answer. It’s weird not to, so reply when someone asks you. They’re ranked from the most negative to the most positive.
- Es geht mir schlecht (= it’s not going well, bad)
- Es geht mir nicht so gut (= it’s not going so well, not well)
- Es geht. (= it goes, so-so)
- Es geht mir gut (= it’s going well, good)
- Es geht mir sehr gut (= it’s going very well, very good)
If you’re talking for more than one person, you replace mir by ‘uns’ (= to us).
In any case, you can leave the ‘es geht mir/uns’ out. Literally, that means ‘it goes to me/us’. So you can say simply:
- schlecht
- nicht so gut
- gut
- sehr gut
You can add danke (= thank you) to gut and sehr gut. There are still other ways to answer, especially slang.
Don’t forget to ask the person who asks you how he/she is going!
- und dir? (single and informal)
- und Ihnen? (formal)
- und euch? (plural and informal)
Words
Note: we’ll see the verb gehen in another lesson. Don’t forget to pronounce all the words as a practice.
Exercises
Let’s put that to practice! Translate the following dialogues:
- Good evening mr Scholz.
Good evening.
How are you?
I’m fine, thank you. And you?
Very well. Have a nice day.
Thank you. See you later. - Hi, Susan and Jan. (they’re children).
Hello!
How are you?
We’re very well.
Nice. See you soon.
Bye!
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Solutions:
- Guten Abend Herr Scholz.
Guten Abend.
Wie geht es Ihnen?
Es geht mir gut, danke. Und Ihnen?
Sehr gut. Schönen Tag.
Danke. Auf Wiedersehen. - Hi, Susan und Jan.
Hallo!
Wie geht’s euch?
Es geht uns sehr gut.
Gut. Bis bald.
Tschüss!