BootsnAll Travel Community

So - I may not be able to speak any language other than English to any recognisable degree, but atleast I can say hello in 10 languages:

English
Scottish-Gaelic
French
German
Spanish
Latvian
Italian
Japanese
Thai
Arabic

Damn - forgot Hebrew and Maori and Hawaiian...

If this were an activity in an ESL class, I'd have to respond "prove it!" and make you say hello in those languages. So how do you?

I can add

Turkish (merhaba)
Lao (sabadii)
Tunisian Arabic (selaam, mon ami)

Okay then...

English - hi / hiya / g'day / hello
Scottish-Gaelic - Oidhche mhath
French - Bonjour
German - Guten Tag
Spanish - Ola
Latvian - Labdien
Italian - ciao
Japanese - Konichiwa
Thai - Sawatdee Kaa
Arabic - as salaam alaykum
Hebrew - Shalom
Maori - Kia Ora
Hawaiian - Aloha

Oh - and Croatian (Dobro jutro)

Admittedly, I did not know the Scottish, Latvian Maori, Lao or Tunisian Arabic, but the rest on the list, I got. Add to that:

Hungarian - "Jo napot" (good day) and "Szia" (Hello).
Egyptian Arabic - "Sabah el Kher" (good morning)
Romanian - "Buna zia"
Romani - "Dobroj Tut"
Mandarain - "Ni Hao"
Estonian - "Tervist"
Czech and Slovak - "Dobry den"
Slovenian - "Zhivjo" informally - I don't remember the formal
Dutch - "Godendag" or just "Dag"
Zulu - "Sawu bona"
Xhosa - "Molo"
Russian - "Privet"
Portugese - "Ola"
Dinka - "See Yee Bak"
"Dobro Jutro (good morning) and Dobar Dan (good day also apply to Serbia and Bosnia. More common for hi, however, is "Zdravo" or "Bog" in Croatia

dammit - I will have to tell the croatian guy who sits next to me at work that he's got it wrong then...

Nope, he is right. "Dobro jutro" is correct if you want to say "Good morning." "Bog" meaning "God" is a common way to say "Hi" in Croatia. Similar to the way the Austrians use "Gruss Gott" and Arabs us "Salaam el Leykum" I used Bog a lot with my friends and some of my most familiar Croatia clients.

Ask your Croatia colleague, "Kako Ste?" (How are you?) or if you are feeling more daring say "Je buti slikas foyju." Then laugh.

quote:

if you are feeling more daring say "Je buti slikas foyju." Then laugh.

Ha ha...

I understand part of that anyway I think.

You know, in Moscow they have Russian tea, in the UK they have black tea, and in ex-Yugo they have jebi ga ti...

What about plain old Cao?

quote:

Originally posted by KPG:

Japanese - Konichiwa

Actually in practice the standard greeting in summer and winter seems to be a winge about the weather:

Atsui, desu ne? (Hot, isn't it?)
Samui, desu ne? (Cold, isn't it?)

These greetings seem to be used regardless of the actual temperature.

I can add:

Slovak--Ahoj (hello)

You can add Welsh too with:

Hello: Shw mae (Shoe-my)
Good Morning: Bore da (Boh-reh-dar)

You can add Korean

Hello - 안녕하세요 (An nyeong ha sey yo)
or
Hi - 안녕 (An nyeong)

quote:

Originally posted by KPG:
So - I may not be able to speak any language other than English to any recognisable degree, but atleast I can say hello in 10 languages:

English
Scottish-Gaelic
French
German
Spanish
Latvian
Italian
Japanese
Thai
Arabic

Hmmm...let me think.

English: G'day / Hello
German: Guten tag / Hallo
Spanish: Buenos dias / Hola
French: Bonjour / Alo (phone)
Italian: Buon giorno / Ciao
Portuguese: Ola / Bom dia
Polish: Dobry den?
Norwegian: Hej
Swedish: Hallo (something like that)
Chinese: Ni hao

quote:

Originally posted by KPG:

Scottish-Gaelic - Oidhche mhath

Hate to ruin it for you but that means goodnight!
In Irish-gaelic it's spelt Oiche mhaith but said pretty much the same way.

The Irish Gaelic hello is Dia dhuit. Literally God be with you.
In Ulster, the north of the country they said, 'Cad é mar atá tú?'. Mean how are you but they say it as hello.
That's what they say in Scottish-gaelic too but the spelling is different I think.

Has anyone said Swedish? Think it's hej!

The ones I know (which I think have all been said already) are Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, English, Egyptian Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Hindi/Urdu... um... I think that's it for me.

Aloha kakou!

This is a tricky one ... some languages have so many ways to say hello, depending on rank and time of day and formality and gender and ... who knows what else.

Some for the list:

Bahasa Indonesia - selamat pagi (good morning)

Turkish - Iyi gunler (good day)

Micronesian (Chuuk) - Ran allim (good day)

Micronesian (Pohnpei) - Kaselehlie

Micronesian (Chamorro) - Hafa adai

Mentawai (Sumatra) - Anailoita (Not sure how to spell that!)

Mandarin - Nii hao (Get the tones right! Else it might mean 'suck my goose' for all I know).

Portuguese / Brazil - Bom dia.

Egyptian Arabic - Baksheesh mister.


I used to know some of the Thai and Sumatran indigenous language greetings, but I forgot which went with who - not that I could spell any of them. There was an u du tois and an abudah jah

Haci Richard - Now I need to go to Tunisia just so that I can say Selam, mon ami. There's something sexy about that.

Michael C

In Swedish it's definitely - hej!

Polish - czesc! or Dzien Dobry!
Cape Verdean Creole - Tu de bon!
Dzongkha (Bhutan) - kuzuzangbola!

English: Howdy.
Spanish: Hola.
Portuguese: Oi.
Dutch: Hallo.
German: Hallo.
French: Salut.
Czech: Ahoj.
Russian: Privet.
Arabic: La-bas.
Hebrew: Shalom.
Thai: Sawatdee khap.
Korean: Annyeong (haseyo).
Japanese: Genki.
Burmese: Mingalaba.
Bahasa: Selamat (+).
Mandarin: Ni hao.
Italian: Ciao.
Swahili: Jambo.
Hindi: Namaste.

English
French
Spanish
German
Arabic

The rest I forget.