You probably think that by smart, I mean cool and humorous answers, no I don’t. By smart, I mean safe without being boring. When native speakers greet first, many learners stick to the same 1-syllable or 1-word come backs (answers). For example:
How are you?
fine.
How’s it going?
Good.
How are you doing?
Great.
How’ve you been?
I’m Alright.
What’s up?
Hello
Sometimes worse, they freeze like a reindeer caught in the headlights.
What’ve you been up to?
Err…(jiggle)…very good.
The answers I’m going to teach you are smart because they can be used to answer several greeting questions. Alrighty, here’s the first:
Pretty good thanks and you? [preddy good thank sin you?]
This answer is smart for 3 reasons:
1/because you can’t go grammatically wrong, it can mean “I’m pretty good”, “it’s going pretty good”, “I’m doing pretty good” or “I’ve been pretty good”, but by saying “pretty good”, you are skipping the grammar part and you’re still grammatically correct.
2/it has a bit of informal English in it “pretty” and
3/It also contains a question, so you avoid the awkward short silence that usually follows. You can also say…
Pretty well thanks and you? or Not too bad thanks and you?
Now unless you are fluent and comfortable telling long stories, don’t say “Pretty bad thanks and you?” Because you will definitely be asked “Why? what happened?”.
Now, you can’t answer with “pretty good” when someone asks you “what have you been up to?” or “what’s up?”, it’s just wrong. You can answer like that.
What have you been up to? OR What’s up? OR What’s going on? OR What’s been going on?
Nothing much and you? OR Same old same old and you? [say mole say mole d new?]
What are YOUR favorite greetings? Tell us about your experience as an English learner. What are the most common greetings you’ve heard from native speakers?
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