Question How do you say... ...in other languages?

[ar81]

I would like to know how to say...

Hello
How are you?
Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Good evening
Have a nice day
Good bye

...in Indian, in Russian, or any other language that belongs to the other side of the world.

In spanish it would be:

Hola
¿Cómo éstá usted?
Buenos días
Buenas tardes
Buenas noches
Tenga un buen día
Hasta luego

pronounciation in english would be

oh-lah
koh-moh es-tah oos-ted
boo-eh-nohs dee-as
boo-eh-nas tar-des
teh-ngah oon boo-en dee-ah
as-tah lu-eh-goh

 

[cjp]

Let me do Dutch(*):

Instead of doing it manually, I tried translation software for fun. Babelfish returned this (I added the comments):
Hello. (that's English, not Dutch!)
Hoe bent u? (way too literal translation)
Goedemorgen. (OK)
Goede Middag. (should be one word like Goedemorgen)
Goede avond. (same)
Heb een aardige dag. (way too literal translation)
Vaarwel. (that means 'farewell'!)

Google translate did a better job:
Hallo.
Hoe gaat het ermee?
Goedemorgen.
Goedemiddag.
Goedenavond.
Nog een prettige dag.
Tot ziens.
All very nice translations. They are a bit formal, but maybe so are the English ones.

I am not even trying to explain how to pronounce it. There are dutch 'G's in it, and dutch 'R's (which even most dutch people like me can't pronounce properly). Luckily there is no dutch 'ui' in it, like in 'Kuiper belt'.

(*) Language spoken in the Netherlands, parts of Belgium and some other places; The English word 'dutch' makes no sense; here we call it 'Nederlands', and the country name is 'Nederland'. A.k.a. 'Holland', but Holland is only a part of 'Nederland', and 'Nederland' is only a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which also includes some caribbean islands.

 

[MeDiCS]

You said 'other side of the world', but, oh well...
(Brazilian portuguese, which is different from europeean portuguese)

Oi
Como está você?
Bom dia
Boa tarde
Boa noite
Tenha um bom dia
Adeus /goodbye
Tchau /bye

And the pronunciation:
(all 'a' are open, like in 'house')
oi
coh-moh eh-s-ta voh-seh
bom de-a
boa ta-h-deh (the lone 'h' is like in 'hurricane')
teh-n-ya oom bom de-a
a-deh-oos
tshah-oo

 

[Urwumpe]

Hello
How are you?
Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Good evening
Have a nice day
Good bye

In German:
Hallo
Wie geht es Dir?
Guten Morgen
Guten Tag
(Afternoon means actually "Nachmittag" but no German will wish you a "Guten Nachmittag")
Guten Abend
Mach's gut!
Auf Wiedersehen

Pronunciation:
Forget it, unless you want to sound like a US soldier right after WW2.
Life is too short to learn German.

If you are in northern Germany, forget "Hallo" and "Guten.....", just say "moin".

Just as much as it is recommended to use "Grüß Gott" in Bavaria, unless you want to sound like a foreigner, who learned German in the wrong state.

 

[Fizyk]

In Polish:
Hello. = Cześć. /ʧɛɕʨ/
How are you = Jak się masz? /jak ɕɛ̃ maʃ/
Good Morning = Dzień dobry. /ʥɛɲ dɔbrɨ/
Good Afternoon = Dzień dobry.
Good evening = Dobry wieczór. /dɔbrɨ vjɛʧur/
Have a nice day = Miłego dnia. /miwɛgɔ dɲa/
Good bye = Do widzenia. /dɔ viʣɛɲa/

I tried to write the pronunciation in IPA, I hope I got it right.
Polish is considered a very hard language. Well, I wouldn't want to have to learn it, if I wasn't a native speaker

 

[Kveldulf]

You said 'other side of the world', but, oh well...
(Brazilian portuguese, which is different from europeean portuguese)

Oi
Como está você?
Bom dia
Boa tarde
Boa noite
Tenha um bom dia
Adeus /goodbye
Tchau /bye

And the pronunciation:
(all 'a' are open, like in 'house')
oi
coh-moh eh-s-ta voh-seh
bom de-a
boa ta-h-deh (the lone 'h' is like in 'hurricane')
teh-n-ya oom bom de-a
a-deh-oos
tshah-oo

Question: I've been studying Brazilian Portuguese, and I'm wondering about your pronunciations. For instance, I've always heard the d pronounced like a g (I.e. Bom Dia is pronounced bom gee-ah roughly). Or at least thats what my girlfriend always told me, but she's from Minas Gerais, so is it possible its just a difference in pronunciation between the states?

 

[dbeachy1]

I'll try it in Japanese (my romaji spelling may be off...) Respellings shown in brackets. Also note that (as I understand it) there are no accents in Japanese, so you can just sound out the words evenly.

Hello : moshimoshi [MOE SHEE MOE SHEE]
How are you? : O genki desu ka? [O GENKEE DES KA] (literally, "Are you energetic?" )
Good Morning : ohayou (informal) or ohayougozaimasu (formal) [O HIGH YO or O HIGH YO GO ZIE MAS]
Good Afternoon : konichiwa [KO NICH EE WA]
Good evening: konbanha [KAHN BAHN HA]
Have a nice day : [don't know this one]
Goodbye: sayonara (literally, "farewell") [SIE YO NA RA]; for "see you later," it's ja ne [JA NAY]

 

[cjp]

Good evening: konbanha [KON BON HA]

I learned 'konban wa'; my language guide says 'komban wa' (not a real difference in Japanese).

How about this "ha"/"wa" part? I know the topic marker particle is spelled as は(ha), but pronounced as wa. At least that was the case in Tokyo; I don't know about other dialects (Tokyo Japanese is pretty much standard Japanese). There must be some reason why it's spelled as 'ha'.

But I wouldn't call myself an expert on Japanese...

 

[MeDiCS]

->Kvelduf
That's great, and don't give up in the way! pt-br is full of grammar exceptions that you can only learn by practice...

The 'd' is pronounced as a d as defined by formal norms. Your girlfriend pronounces a g-like d because of regional accent, which can vary a lot across our big country . For example, since I live on the northeast region, my speech is more nasalised than people raised on the south region.

It's not wrong, just a peculiarity .
If you have any more questions, or want to practice your grammar, PM me :speakcool:

 

[Matte]

I would like to know how to say...
Hello
How are you?
Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Good evening
Have a nice day
Good bye

In Italian:

Ciao
Come stai?
Buon Giorno
Buon Pomeriggio
Buona Sera
Buona Giornata (Passa una buona giornata)
Arrivederci

 

[SiberianTiger]

I would like to know how to say...

Hello
How are you?
Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Good evening
Have a nice day
Good bye

In Russian, that would be:

Привет! (pree-vEt)
Как дела? (kUhk deelAh?)
С добрым утром! (sdObryym OOtrohm)
Добрый день! (dObryy dEn')
Добрый вечер! (dObryy vEtcheer)
Всего хорошего! (fsivOH kharOshivoh) - but this is a bit more like a partying
Пока! (pakAH)

(the accented vowel is shown in capital.

 

[MajorTom]

I learned 'konban wa'; my language guide says 'komban wa' (not a real difference in Japanese).

How about this "ha"/"wa" part? I know the topic marker particle is spelled as は(ha), but pronounced as wa. At least that was the case in Tokyo; I don't know about other dialects (Tokyo Japanese is pretty much standard Japanese). There must be some reason why it's spelled as 'ha'.

But I wouldn't call myself an expert on Japanese...

I can vouch for the fact that most everywhere in Japan, "Ha" after "konnichi" or "konban" is pronounced "wa." This "ha" is strange part of speech, called a particle, and is also used in many declarative sentences, such as

Kore ha pen desu (ko-ray wa pen dess)
​

My attempt at "Have a nice day:"

Yoi ichinichi wo sugoshi-te kudasai!
​

[Edit: the hyphen above was necessary because some sort of auto-checker removed a naughty word embedded in the Japanese]

In Russian, that would be:

Привет! (pree-vEt)
Как дела? (kUhk deelAh?)
С добрым утром! (sdObryym OOtrohm)
Добрый день! (dObryy dEn')
Добрый вечер! (dObryy vEtcheer)
Всего хорошего! (fsivOH kharOshivoh) - but this is a bit more like a partying
Пока! (pakAH)

(the accented vowel is shown in capital.

ST,

A Russian friend tried to teach me how to say "you're welcome" (I believe it was) and I had such trouble saying it...something like "Strab-tsvuttye" ??

Ciao
MT

 

[Genius]

In Afrikaans...

Hello
How are you?
Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Good evening
Have a nice day
Good bye

Hello
Hoe gaan dit met jou?
Goeie More
Goeie Middag
Goeie naand
Mag die dag voorspoedig wees
Totsiens

It is much like the Dutch language because Afrikaans is lent from Dutch.
Not so cjp?

 

[Piper]

In French (Quebec french that is, I wouldn't be surprised if it is different in France, and I should note my french is rather bad ):

Informal: Salut/Allo, Formal: Bonjour
Comme-on ca va?
Good Morning: (Not sure, bebel fish gave Bon apres-midi, which sounds familiar, but I've know I've never been greeted like this, and is probably just too litteral of a translation, I virtually always get greeted with either bonjour, allo (rarely), or salut (friends only).
Bonjour (again, lol)
Bonsoir (I've always heard this as a farewell, and never as a greeting though)
Have a nice day - Bonne journee
Au'revoir (Salut is often used informally here as well)

 

[bujin]

Hello
How are you?
Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Good evening
Have a nice day
Good bye

In Welsh:

Helo (pron., erm, "hello")
Sut dych chi (sit dukh khi) *
Bore da (boh-reh dah)
P'nawn da (p-nown dah)
Noswaith dda (nohs-wyeth thah)
--- not entirely sure on "have a nice day" (I'm not a fluent Welsh speaker, unfortunately)
Hwyl (hoo-yl)


* Note: "sut dych chi" is how us Gogs (North Welsh) say it. The Hwntws (South Welsh) are awkward and have a different way of saying it...

Oh, and the "ch" sound in Welsh is pronounced the same as in the Scottish "loch".

 

[cjp]

It is much like the Dutch language because Afrikaans is lent from Dutch.
Not so cjp?

Absolutely. I can perfectly understand your translations, especially when I try to pronounce them. It's maybe a bit like people speaking English with a heavy Indian accent. You have to get used to it.

"Mag die dag voorspoedig wees" sounds quite long to me. It is a literal translation of "have a nice day", but do you really use a sentence like this?

 

[simonpro]

In Swedish/Danish:

Hello 'Hej' / Same
How are you? 'Hur mår du?' / 'Hvordan går det?'
Good Morning 'God morgon' / 'God morgen'
Good Afternoon 'God eftermiddag' / 'God aften'
Good evening 'God kväll' / 'God aften'
Have a nice day 'Ha det bra' / 'Ha det godt'
Good bye 'Hej då' or 'farväl' / 'Hej hej' or 'Vi ses'


As you can see, they're pretty much the same. As you can't see, they're pronounced very differently, Danish sounds very strange to a Swede and a Dane can't really understand Swedish.

 

[Redburne]

Have a nice day=Mach's gut!

If I'm not mistaken, "have a nice day" is mostly used by employees wishing goodbye to a customer and is rarely used outside of that context.
The German "Mach's gut" is used like the English "see you!" and implies a certain familiarity between the involved parties.

So the most fitting translation would be "(einen) schönen Tag noch!", which is actually almost verbatim.

 

[Genius]

Absolutely. I can perfectly understand your translations, especially when I try to pronounce them. It's maybe a bit like people speaking English with a heavy Indian accent. You have to get used to it.

"Mag die dag voorspoedig wees" sounds quite long to me. It is a literal translation of "have a nice day", but do you really use a sentence like this?

Wat dan van "lekker dag":lol:

 

[Mister Kite]

Dutch a little less formal:

Hoi.
Hoe is 't?
Goeie morruge.
Goeie middag.
Goeien avond.
Goeie dag.
Hoi.

Yes, you can use 'Hoi' when you met and when you part.
Which brings me to Italian.
I always say 'ciao' when I leave.
Is that totally wrong?