Yunjie Xue
At the first two months when I had come to Montreal, the most “terrifying” and “dreadful” thing for me was to respond to “How are you?” asked by other nice, friendly people here—And imagine, I had to do it at any time and anywhere!
For sure I understand that is merely a simple and common greeting, but I just cannot get accustomed to it. This question always makes me feel very nervous and think a lot: Does he/she ask how I am going? Oh, he/she is such a kind person concerning about me! Should I say “thank you” and “how are you” back? Actually, I am so pleased now because I have just finished one of my assignments. So should I tell the person about it? But if I tell, it seems like we are going to have a formal conversation. If I don’t tell, what else could I do? Maybe I should give he/her a smile… Don’t call me a drama queen. It is literally what I went through in mind when asked about “how are you” at the very beginning.
I originally attribute such clumsiness and embarrassment to “social anxiety”. Maybe it’s my lack of social skills and excess of sensitivity that leads me to think and react overly. But searching “How to reply how are you in English” online, you would find thousands of people desperately looking for the answer, just like me.
Does that mean that there are some more underlying reasons related to English and Chinese language themselves? “How are you”, in English, is in fact not an invitation to initiate a conversation or an expression of concern to the interlocutor, but a social convention, a small talk, an efficient way of acknowledging the presence of both the speaker and listener. If you try to answer it personally and concretely other than “fine”, “good”, or “okay”, you are kind of “break the rule of this convention”. However, “how are you”(translated into “你好吗”), in Chinese, tends to be a more genuine inquiry as to each other’s well-being between friends and family members, or at least, acquaintances. If someone asks you “你好吗”, you can answer with full sentences like “I’m so happy because I have got a good job” and “I am so tired recently because there are too much work to do”. As for the basic greeting, a nod, a smile, or a wave is enough considering its high-context culture.
The funny thing is, until now, I still have not totally overcome the “fear” faced with “how are you”. Instead, I change my strategy—taking one step ahead to say “how are you” before the others try to say something. And it works well!
Discussion Problems:
1. After finishing this blog article, I think of another interesting greeting story. I have an American friend in China. Every time we meet, she would say “你(ni)好(hao)” to me and I would answer her with “你好”, but I never told her that, in China, people don’t say “你好” to each other when greeting which is too formal and serious.
2. Have you ever had similar language-speaking or language-learning experience caused by different social backgrounds? If have, what did you do to address the misunderstandings during intercultural conversation? How to help L2 learners to avoid such situation and learn different communication rules both culturally and contextually?
Hi Yunjie, it is interesting to talk about this. I had same feelings when I was in the States a few years ago. I did not know when I should reply nicely, when quickly, when I could just ignore, at first. I got surprised several times when people just walked away after they asked me “how are you”.
So, now, I think I am getting better in answering this most simple question: respond as how the person asks you. If he/she is in a rush or it’s in a customer-service place or there is not much relationship/connection between we two , then a smile or “fine thank you” is enough. If it is a friend, a classmate, or someone I have some connection, I will talk a bit more. Whether to follow-up with the question “And you?”, it usually depends if I want to continue the conversation.
So much and so fun to learn and experience a language/ culture as a learner/ half-outsider 🙂
Mengting H.
Hi Mengting, this is Yunjie. It’s so fun to know that I am not the only person with such feeling. Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
Actually I think more after writing this blog. Just like I said in the article, a smile, a nod, or a wave is enough for Chinese people when they meet and greet. Of course they could say something, but the question is, they usually say “hi” or “hello”. And that is English, right? I try to find some simple greetings in Chinese used in daily, informal life, but find nothing. It seems that “hi” and “hello” have already been integrated in Chinese everyday language. What do you think? 🙂
This whole topic of greetings is FRAUGHT. The subtle cultural differences are staggeringly complex. I think it’s not just a question of cultural differences, either—it’s also about personality differences. The two together make adjusting to meeting people in a language not your own seem like an impossible task. Is just a smile and a nod enough, do you think? (of course that raises the thorny topic of NON-verbal language! Nods are not nods the world over by any means.) One is tempted to give up altogether, and retreat into one’s hermit cave…
Thank you mela! I have never realized that the whole greeting topic is so complex, involving language differences, cultural differences, personality differences, non-verbal language, and social skills which is mentioned by Chris in his comment. Maybe the best way to deal with such a complicated and intricate problem is to think less and say directly…
-Yunjie
When I first moved to the US for my undergrad, I had no idea how to respond to ‘what’s up?’, so I asked my American friend how he would respond. He said, “Hmm… Nothing? Maybe? I don’t know. Anything” because he hadn’t even thought about how to respond to ‘what’s up?’. This kind of implicit knowledge is difficult to acquire in EFL classrooms especially when exams focus on assessing students’ explicit knowledge. I think the most important thing is to build students’ self-confidence. I used to overthink every little thing and often got disappointed at my poor English, but at one point I thought “well, I don’t have to speak perfect English. It’s my second language. If it’s better than last month or last year, it’s just fine”, and I felt much better. After that, I became able to think about the progress I have made, and it helped me feel confident. I’ve shared this experience with my former students, and I am happy to share it with people who are struggling with learning a new language and living in a different culture.
-Yuri
Hi, Yuri. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. That is so helpful and encouraging! Sometimes I just think it’s a little bit unfair why a native speaker could say something “mindlessly” whereas the second language learner would overthink a lot lol.
I can understand your confusion ! As a native English speaker, I never really thought about the complexities of this question. There are so many things to think about when answering: what is the context, who is asking, what is their body language ? I think that the only cardinal rule is that you never say that you are not doing well, unless it is someone who you think is genuinely asking about your wellbeing. Even then, you might answer “I’m doing fine !”, even if that is not the truth. I stumbled on a meme that perfectly depicted this phenomenon: a gentleman walks into his therapists office and the therapist says “how are you today” ? and the gentleman replies “good, and you ?”. Then the doctor asks, “so what brings you here today ?” to which the gentleman responds “I’m not doing so good”. It just goes to show you that “how are you” can just act as a greeting”. As you mentioned in your post, greetings differ from language to language. By far the one I had the hardest time wrapping my head around was the Korean greeting of “밥 먹었어 ?” or “bap meogeosseo?” which literally means “have you eaten rice ?” In this case, rice is synonymous with food, and asking someone if they’ve eaten is just like asking about their wellbeing, or how they are doing.
-Chris
Thank for sharing the interesting meme, Chris! I think you point out another key issue to the “how are you” problem– regardless of language and cultural difference, it is also a problem about social and interpersonal skills. Sometimes when someone else asks you “how are you”, even though you are sad, you may have no choice but to say “I’m good”. That sounds even a little bit cruel!! But still true, right…
And you talked about that Korean people would like to ask “have you eaten rice” as greeting. That’s so amazing because in Chinese we have the exactly same greeting expression! We would ask “你吃过了吗 ni chi guo le ma”(meaning “have you eaten something”) as the first sentence in a conversation. But this expression has become a little old-fashioned and are not used by young people now. But still it’s worth further investigating why people in these two countries would ask in this way.
Hello Yunjie, I’m so glad you bring this topic up, coz this is exactly something that have bothered me since I came here. As you said, there is no such greeting in Chinese context, so every time I’m asked this question, my mind either blanks out or starts a brainstorm as you shared. And I experienced this awkward moment when I came across someone asking “how are you” to me but apparently didn’t mean to stop for a talk. I was supposed to reply a quick “Good” to greet back, but my mind just crashed and I had no idea how to reply properly, friendly and kindly. So there was an impolite and awkward silence and I bet I must left a bad impression to that person. But after several times, I got to know it’s not necessarily a start of conversation, but a casual greeting like hello.
XIN
Hi Yunjie,
I have the same problem, too. And Chris’ answer for that question is very inspiring. I think maybe a more up-to-date translation in Chinese for ‘How are you’ is ‘怎么样’ (how is it going/ how are you doing). Mostly, we answer ‘挺好的’(good/quite well) to the question‘怎么样’, just as a way to respond to the greetings. But on some occasions, we do add some specific details if someone is really asking ‘how is it going’. And I find the way of greetings also is evolving all the time and varies in different groups. Among the youngsters they seem to have a very weird expression of saying hello with someone’s initial. In China, greetings like ‘吃了吗’(did you eat) seem to be more often used in northern part of China among the elder people.
Fangzhe
I feel you sis! I also felt the same when I was asked, and I would always answer “good” awkwardly and feel unsure about whether it is an appropriate reply afterwards. It is also the same when I was asked “wassup”. I originally thought these two expressions meant the same thing and could be answered in the same way. However, I found out people would always reply “nothing”, “nothing much”, or “just chilling”, after I asked “wassup”.
I still remember the first English lesson I took in primary school was about greetings. The conversation goes like this:
-“How are you?”
-“I’m fine. Thank you! And you?”
-“I’m fine too!”
However, in my undergrad, I was mocked by my teacher who is from the US when I answered with “I’m fine. Thank you! And you?”. He told me it was hilarious to hear every Chinese student answer the same thing when he asked how are you.
Mengting L