8 other ways of saying “¡hola!” in Spanish

Having trouble getting past “¡Hola!” when introducing yourself in Spanish? Would you like to sound like you’ve been learning Spanish for years? Then keep reading for some widely used Spanish greetings that will help you impress your new Spanish-speaking friends!

When you’re learning Spanish (or any new language), what matters is that you strike up a conversation and keep going! So if you need a little inspiration on Spanish greetings other than “hello”, here are a few ideas:

Basic Spanish greetings

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These are some casual conversation starters:

• ¿Qué tal?
• ¿Cómo estás?
• ¿Qué tal te va?
• ¿Qué tal todo?

All of these roughly translate to “how are you?” or “how’s it going?”. You can use any of these in almost any situation for a very appropriate yet casual greeting. If you want to express a bit of a more carefree attitude to your greeting, try these:

• ¿Qué pasa?
• ¿Todo bien?
• ¿Qué haces?
• ¡Muy buenas!
• ¿Qué hay?

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Much like in english, “What’s up?” or “What are you up to?” are very common ways of greeting a friend in a very relaxed way, but don’t be afraid to use them yourself. Far from sounding rude, you will give off the feeling of knowing your way around Spanish greetings.

Pro tip: feeling extra adventurous? Then try a combination! Anything rom “Ey, ¡hola! ¿cómo te va?” to “Muy buenas, amigo, ¿todo bien?” and you will sweep everybody off their feet.

Introductions

Whenever you’re being introduced to someone, chances are you will need to introduce yourself too. Now, a commonly used phrase for “nice to meet you” in movies and TV  is “mucho gusto“. There is nothing wrong about this, but turns out it sounds a bit dated, so check out these other phrases:

• Encantado/a de conocerte – nice to meet you
• Encantado/a – short version
• Un placer – pleasure

What to reply

And because a conversation requires a minimum of two, we figure you will find these basic Spanish phrases useful for answering:

• ¡Genial, gracias! – doing great, thanks!
• ¡Mejor que nunca! – never better!
• Ahí voy/Tirando – hanging in there
• No me puedo quejar – can’t complain!
• ¿Y tú? – and you?

Now that you have some less boring ways of inquiring after somebody, and of replying yourself, go ahead and start practicing your Spanish conversation skills!