Saludos
A saludo is the initial part of every communicative interaction. When people greet each other, they are not very creative! To greet other people, languages have a fixed set of standard expressions, such as “hello,” “hi,” “How are you?,” and “What’s up?,” as well as standard responses, like “Fine, thanks. How are you?”
While there are a limited number of these standard expressions, a person does make a choice as to which one to use. This choice is made according to different factors. One of these factors is the time of day when the greeting takes place.
Foto: jlmaral CC BY-SA 2.0
Note that in English, we say “good evening” to greet someone and “good night” to say bye. In Spanish, the expression buenas noches has both of these meanings; it will be clear from the context if it is a greeting or a goodbye.
Vocabulario útil antes de ver el video…
Saludos
The second factor in determining which greeting is used is the personal relationship that exists between people. This relationship can be understood in terms of social distance on a scale that ranges from very familiar to very formal. For example, if you are greeting a close friend or family member, you would use a more informal greeting. If you are greeting someone you have never met before—an authority figure, an elder, or a potential employer—you would use a more formal greeting.
Foto: Monica Martinez/Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires CC BY 2.0 |
Foto: Špjwagen! CC BY-SA 2.0 |
| formal: | familiar: |
|---|---|
 ¿Cómo está? |
¿Cómo estás? |
| ¿Cómo le va? |
¿Cómo te va? |
There are also greetings that are very general and can be utilized at any time of day and with any person, regardless of the relationship, for example:
Ejercicio:
Escoja el saludo correcto para usar con las personas indicadas. Es posible tener más de una respuesta correcta. (Choose the correct greeting you would use with the following.people There may be more than one correct answer.)
The structure of greetings often is very simple and quick, as such, one responds to a greeting with another greeting.
| Estudiante A | ¡Hola! |
| Estudiante B | ¡Hola! |
The greeting process can also be a little more complicated. As you can see and hear in the following examples, the speakers not only say a hello, but also ask how each other are doing.
| Señor Villalobos | Buenos días. ¿Cómo está usted? (formal) |
| Señora Rama | Bien, gracias. ¿Y usted? |
| Rosa | Buenas tardes. ¿Cómo estás? (familiar) |
| Estela | Más o menos. ¿Y tú? |
Candela Citations
- Lesson 1: Funciones. Authored by: Open Learning Initiative. Provided by: Carnegie Mellon. Located at: https://oli.cmu.edu/jcourse/lms/students/syllabus.do?section=037856eb80020ca6007833f93f06cd13. Project: Spanish1. License: CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
