How do you say hi and/or bye in your country??

[Un'Anima Persa]

just a question that i have always wondered.

In spain, they use:
Buenos Dias= good morning
Buenos Tardes= good afternoon
Buenos Noches= Good night
Hola=hello

and portuguese:
Olá - Hello, Hi
Oi - Hello, Hi (used mainly in Brazil)
Bom dia - Good morning
Boa tarde - Good afternoon
Boa noite - Good evening, Good night
Chau, Adeus - Goodbye

and french:

you?

[Un'Anima Persa]

sorry bout that, and french:
Hello (day) Bonjour
Hello (evening) Bonsoir
Hello (informal) Salut

[Mistress Siana]

In German:

Guten Morgen= good morning
Guten Tag= good afternoon ('good day', rather)
Guten Abend=good evening
Gute Nacht= good night
Auf Wiedersehen, Tschüß=Farewell, Bye
Hallo and Hi stay the same

Hm, what else do I know?

Finnish:
hyvää huomenta = good morning
hyvää päivää = good afternoon ('good day', rather)
hyvää iltaa=good evening
hyvää yötä= good night
Hyvästi=Bye

Dutch:
goedemorgen = good morning
goedemiddag/goedentag = good afternoon
goedenavond=good evening

I love that language! Pretty close to german, but sooo cool.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

In New Zealand our national languages are English, Maori, and I think there was a bill trying to be passed to make Sign Language one too. I think I heard something about Dutch being one too, though I'm not sure why as the Netherlands (I'm just gonna say Holland from now on, the other is too long lol) are so far away. I remember my Oma & Opa from Holland and my Dad trying to teach me some of the greetings that you just wrote down. I could barely get them down.
And yet I can get a Dutch passport if I want lol!
Learning Te Reo (Maori) is optional, and though most Maori themselves can learn it, they use English more i think.
The Moari greeting you will come across quite often is Kia Ora.
Haere mai is "welcome" or something as well but I'm not sure, my knowledge is really quite pitiful... I should make an effort lol.

[Hagger 9003]

yay!!! people like dutch!! being in amsterdam, i kno quite a few things.

siana, ur right. but theres slang as well.

dag = hi, bye
doei = bye
goyen morgen= good morning
fijn avond = good evening

dutch is cool, and its almost the same as german. it has weird pronounciations tho, with the "g" being a really harsh throaty "h" sound, and the "j" being "y". everyone else finds it really hard to pronounce, cos u dont make a sound like the "g" in any other language.

i think the dutch is used a bit in NZ cos of colonies, etc. did u kno, zealand is a region in holland. it was originally settled by the dutch, i think, and they kept the name.

New york used to be new amsterdam, too. but the english took it and named it after york.

i kno way too many random facts.

[Mistress Siana]

Don't you think it's cool how people from almost every part of the world are talking in this little thread?

Maori must be interesting, I guess. It must have a a completely different grammatical structure than english or any other indo-european language.

it has weird pronounciations tho, with t...the "j" being "y".

Lol! You know, the dutch and the german would say that you Britons have a really wierd way to pronounce the "j". My first name starts with a j and people always think it's english. And then they say it with their strange german accent, making the "j" sound like "tsh".

everyone else finds it really hard to pronounce, cos u dont make a sound like the "g" in any other language.

Well, the finnish h and the german ch are pronounced the same way. But I think the dutch pronounciations are really difficult, I don't think I'll ever manage to speak a word without sounding horribly strange.

Oooh, I love languages! Welterusten!

[Hagger 9003]

i kno, the dutch langauge confuses everyone, it is really hard to say. maori would be interesting, i think so to, siana.

langauges like korean, japanese and chinese are really cool as well. each symbol can be a word, a letter, a syllable... its kinda confusing, but cool because its different.

thinking about all hte people on this thread, it makes u realise how small the world is nowadays. im talking to a german, a newzealander, and an american, like we are in a conversation. unbelievable, if u think about it.

[Claire]

I live in America but I know a bit of Japanese

hello- konnichiwa
good morning- ohayo gozaimasu
good afternoon- (I think it's just konnichiwa but I'm not positive)
good evening- konbanwa
goodbye (for a significant amount of time)- sayonara
see you later- ja mata
see you tomorrow- ja mata ashita

[Nightcrawler]

I live in Australia, so I our traditional "hello" is "G'day", which is an abreviated "Good day [to you]". Sometimes people will say "Hooroo" for "goodbye", however I think that this latter word is sadly dying.

[Phinea Rogue]

I'm Slovak (Slovakia, Central Europe) and in my language it's like this:

Hello/Hi: Ahoj (Ahoi)

Good morning: Dobré ráno
Good day: Dobrý deň.
Good evening: Dobrý večer.

Goodbye: Dovidenia. Zbohom.

[Hagger 9003]

cool languages!!

i think you can say somthing like "ohioh" for hi in japanese, but im not sure. i have a few japanese friends, and thats what they say when they meet each other.

[Mistress Siana]

Oh! I like Ahoj! Here, it is how old sailors are supposed to greet each other.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

Yeah I think I heard a bit about Zealand, Hagger. Only from a few off-hand statements that people just mention every now and again.
The Maori people came from a Pacific island, hundreds of years ago. Like, many many hundreds of years ago lol. They do have a name for it but i'd get it wrong so I'm not going to bother. They don't actually know where it is, but they know that they originally came from an island somewhere in the Pacific. Anyway, you hear quite a variety of languages if you live around the Pacific. Samoa, Tokelau, and other islands, as well as Maori, well their languages aren't the same, they have the same sort of sound to them. Not dissimilar to English and the other languages closely related.

[choki]

i think you can say somthing like "ohioh" for hi in japanese, but im not sure. i have a few japanese friends, and thats what they say when they meet each other.

U mean Ohayo.
I guess I am the only here who knows Mandarin ard here

Good Morning: Zao An
Good Afternoon: Wu An
Good Evening/Night: Wan An
Hello: Ni Hao
Good Bye: Zai Jian

[Broccoli]

In Russian:

Hello: Привет [priv'yet]
How do you do: Здравствуйте ['zdrastvuyte], the v is not pronounced
Good morning: Доброе утро ['dobroye 'utro]
Good day: Добрый день ['dobryi den]
Good evening: Добрый вечер ['dobryi 'vecher]
Good night: Спокойной ночи [spo'koynoy 'nochi]
Good bye: До свидания [do svi'daniya] - formal, пока [po'ka] - informal

All "o"s that are not stressed are pronounced like a variation of "a".