How to say HELLO! How are you?

In this American English pronunciation video, we’re going to go over how to greet Americans.

As some of you know, last time I was here in LA, at the YouTube Space, I made a video on introducing yourself to people. At the time, I didn’t know anybody. Now, I’m back again with all the same people. So they’re all going to be in this video again saying ‘hey’.

First of all, let’s listen to a bunch of different greetings.

Hey.

Hey, Anthony.

What’s up?

Hey, Rachel.

Whassup Rachel?

Hey Veronica.

Hey.

Morning, guys.

Morning.

Hi.

Hey.

Hey. Hey!

Hello.

Greetings.

Hey, what’s going on?

Hey man.

What up, doe?

You probably noticed a lot of people said ‘hey’. This is definitely the most common way to greet someone in America. It’s pretty casual, and I use it all the time with my friends. Hey, hey. Notice the shape of the voice. There’s a little curve up, and then a curve down in the voice. Hey, hey, hey.

So basically, it’s a stressed word. We start with the H consonant sound and go into the AY as in SAY diphthong. Make sure you drop your jaw enough for the first half of that diphthong. He-e, hey, hey.

Hey.

Hey Veronica.

Hey.

Hey Rachel.

Hey.

Hey.

We also heard ‘hi’ a few times. Again, it’s stressed, so we have that shape of a stressed syllable, hi. Hi. It begins with the H consonant sound, and we have the AI as in BUY diphthong.

Again, make sure you drop your jaw enough for the first half of that diphthong. Hi, hi.

Hi.

Look at that jaw drop we have on the AI as in BUY diphthong.

We also heard ‘hello’. This is a two-syllable word with stress on the second syllable. da-DA, hello. So, it’s that second syllable with the up-down shape of the voice. The first syllable will be pretty flat: he- he-, he-.

It begins with the H consonant and has the EH as in BED vowel. But this is very quick, he- he-, hello. The second syllable begins with the L consonant, so the tongue will come up here, ll, ll, and touch the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth. Hello. Then we have the OH as in NO diphthong. Drop your jaw for the first half of the sound, and make sure you round your lips for the second half.

Hello. Hello.

Hello.

A little bit of lip rounding here for the second half of the OH diphthong.

You may have noticed, some of the guys added ‘man’. Hey man.

Hey man.

It’s ok to say this only to a man. But you may have noticed that I used the term ‘guys’

for a bunch of girls. So, ‘guys’ is a little more gender neutral. Hey guys.

Morning guys.

Morning.

Because I was filming in the morning, a lot of people said ‘morning’ as their greeting.

This is short for ‘good morning’. Simply, ‘morning’. Morning. Now, you could say ‘afternoon’

or ‘evening’ during those times, but it’s not nearly as common. Morning.

Morning guys.

Morning.

Hey, morning guys.

Morning.

Most greetings involve one of these greeting words: hey, hi, morning, and so on, and often a question. The appropriate way to respond is to answer the question, and to ask the same question yourself.

For example: Hey, how are you? Good, how are you?

Let’s take a look at a few of these exchanges.

Staci, Kristina. Hey!

Hey, Rach!

How are you guys?

Oh, it’s good to see you!

Yeah, you too! How’ve you been?

Good, good.

Hey Scooter. What’s up?

What up doe?

Hey Max. What’s up?

Hey, how’s it going?

Good, how are you?

Hey Jenn, hey Frankie.

Hey.

How are you guys doing today?

Good. How are you?

Not good.

Good. You’re not good?

Not good. I just broke my phone.

Hey, what’s going on?

Not much. How are you?

Just hanging out. I hear it’s your birthday today.

It is, actually.

Happy birthday, Rachel.

Thank you.

How are you?

Fabulous.

As always!

Hey Aaron.

Hey, how are you doing?

Good, how are you?

Good.

How are you. We heard this two ways. Once with the word ‘are’ stressed. How are you?

How are you guys? [3x]

How are you? But most of the time, you’ll hear it with that word reduced. How are you?

How are you? [6x]

Great, how are you? [3x]

How are you? So, in that case, make sure it’s really short, er, er, er, how-er, how-er you.

How are you, da-DA-da. How are you, da-da-DA.

The most common response to this phrase is ‘good’. You might sometimes hear ‘great’.

One person even said:

How are you?

Fabulous.

As always!

And unfortunately, one person said ‘not good’, because her phone had just broken.

You’re not good?

Not good. I just broke my phone.

Another question we heard was ‘how’s it going?’

So we’re contracting ‘how is’, how’s, how’s.

So just put a Z sound there at the end of ‘how’. The next word begins with a vowel, so the Z should link those two words together.

How’s it, how’s it, how’s it going? Notice the Stop T at the end of ‘it’. We’re not releasing it: how’s it going. So, just hold the air for a second, and then release again. You can either end with the NG consonant, ng, or with the N consonant, nn. Goin’, goin’.

It’s a little more casual, but that’s ok.

How’s it going, how’s it goin’.

How’s it goin’?

It’s goin’.

Hey, how’s it goin’?

Da-da-DA-da. How’s it going. Again, the answers here will be good, great, not bad, etc.

What’s up? This is answered just like ‘what’s going on?’ Usually ‘nothing’ or ‘not much’, but you can say what you’re doing in that moment. You can hear this as ‘tsup’, with the TS reduction. We also heard it as ‘whassup’, where the T was dropped altogether. Whassup.

And we even heard one person say ‘whadup’.

So what was he doing here? He dropped the S sound, so now the T came between two vowel sounds. So it was a Flap T, sounding like a D. Whadup.

What’s up.

Whassup, Rachel?

Hey, Brysi. What’s up?

Oh hey Rachel. What’s up?

Hey Scooter. What’s up?

Whadup doe?

I hope this was helpful. The next time you see someone you know, don’t be afraid to go up and start a conversation. A huge thanks to everybody who was in this video.

Staci and Kristina both have awesome how-to channels. Staci does knitting tutorials, and Kristina, paper crafts. Aaron makes awesome skateboarding videos. Anthony does music reviews.

Don does children’s music. Evan makes awesome drawing tutorials.

Whassup Rachel’s English. How you all doing, people? This is Evan, from your channel Cartoon Block. Showing kids how to do their thing, drawing and sketching and all that. Veronica has great travel videos on California. Rose and Eman both have great makeup and style channels. Fabulous. Qban Guy does sketch comedy.

Sarah’s crafting channel is awesome. Chris and Hilah work on HilahCooking, a great cooking channel. Billy does awesome children’s music with puppets. You met one of the puppets in one of my other videos. Brysi mixes rap with video games on his channel. Jason does comedy sketches on his channel. Scooter has some great 100 lists on his comedy channel. Max No Sleeves never wears sleeves in his comedy channel. MissJennFabulous has a nail channel, where she did teach me a different way to paint my nails. And Pete is a video producer behind the scenes on several different YouTube channels.

Yeah, what does that mean? What does ‘doe’

mean?

‘Doe’ is a.urban term, which can mean ‘though’. However, you just add it for that emphasis onto the end of sentences.

Pretty much anything?

It’s like an exclamation point, almost.

Can you say it again?

Whadup doe!

That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.