【Learn Chinese】Common Ways to Say “Hi” in Chinese

One of the first things students learn when studying Chinese is how to greet people. Invariably, they're taught that to say "hi" in Chinese, they should say 你好 (nĭhǎo).
“Nĭhǎo” is only one of many different greetings used by Chinese speakers, however. In most cases, it's not even the most common! Read on to discover some of the many different ways to say to “hi” in Chinese.

大家好 | Dàjiā hǎo | Hello everybody!
If you're looking for a way to greet a group of people, you've found it in “大家好” (dàjiā hǎo). 大家 means “everybody” or “everyone” in Chinese, so this greeting literally means “everyone good.”
More accurately, though, it can be translated as “hello everybody.” This is a great greeting with which to address a group.

下午好 | Xiàwǔhǎo | Good afternoon!
Another common pattern used to create greetings is to include the time of day when you're meeting the person you wish to greet, followed by 好. For example, if you're greeting someone in the afternoon, which is 下午 in Mandarin, then you'd say 下午好 (xiàwǔhǎo).

晚上好 | Wǎnshànghǎo | Good evening!
In keeping with the pattern introduced above, if you happen to meet someone at night, you can create a greeting by starting with the Chinese word for night, which is 晚上, and adding 好 at the end. Thus, your greeting becomes 晚上好 (wǎnshànghǎo).
In Chinese, 晚上好 (wǎnshànghǎo) means “good evening” and is a greeting, not a way to bid someone goodnight. If you want to say goodnight to someone in Chinese, you should say 晚安 (wǎn'ān).

早 | Zǎo | Good morning (informal)
If you wish to greet someone in the morning, use the word for morning, which is 早上, followed by 好. This produces the common greeting 早上好 (zǎoshànghǎo; good morning). It's also possible to say 早 (zǎo), which also means good morning.
Note that while it's possible to simply say 早 in the morning, shortening greetings in this way doesn't work in other contexts. It's not acceptable to follow this pattern by simply saying “下” for 下午好 (xiàwǔhǎo) or “晚” for 晚上好 (wǎnshànghǎo). Only 早上好 can be shorted this way.
While 早 and 早上好 are both more or less the same, 早 is slightly less formal. You can think of 早 (zǎo) as being similar to the more relaxed English greeting “mornin’.” 早上好, on the other hand, is simply “good morning.”
早 can be used among friends or people you are familiar with. 早上好 (zǎoshanghǎo) is better to use with older people, superiors, or people you’ve just met.

喂 | Wéi | Hello (used when answering the phone)
喂, or “wéi” in pīnyīn, is a greeting that's exclusively used for answering the phone in China.
In English speaking countries, the greetings used over the phone are usually the same as those used in everyday life. Indeed, most English speakers simply say “hello” when they pick up the phone.
In China, however, it sounds strange to answer the phone by saying 你好 (nĭhǎo). Instead, most people answer the phone by saying 喂 (wéi). Usually, they put extra emphasis on this character’s rising tone, pronouncing it like a single-word question.
If you want to be more polite or you suspect that there's an important caller on the other end of the line, you can also add 你好 (nĭhǎo). However, it sounds more natural to say 喂，你好 (wéi, nĭhǎo) than to simply say 你好 by itself.

你吃了吗 | Nĭ chī le ma? | Have you eaten?
Beginning students of Chinese are sometimes taught that “你吃了吗?” (Nĭ chī le ma?) which means “Have you eaten?,” is a common greeting in China.
This greeting can be confusing, since it sounds like a question that actually requires an answer, much like the common American English greeting “How’s it going?” However, 你吃了吗 isn't meant as an actual question that requires a detailed answer.
Contrary to what many might think, this greeting is not meant as an invitation to a meal. It's simply a polite thing to say. Thus, even if you haven't actually eaten anything, it’s usually easier to reply “吃了，你呢?” (Chī le, nĭ ne?), which means, “I’ve eaten, and you?”