This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 66 how not to respond to an American greeting in English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We're We believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Hey.
Is the question how are you a greeting or an actual question in English?
In this episode, find out what you should not do when you greet an American person in English.
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Hey, Lindsay, how's it going?
Oh, my gosh.
Do you want to know how I am?
Do you really want to know?
I'm not going to go into too much depth to answer your question.
I'm just going to say I'm doing OK.
How are you?
That's all I wanted.
I'm doing all right.
So guys, this is what we're talking about today is what you know.
How should you respond or how should you not respond?
When an American person asks you that question, right, Aubrey?
Exactly.
Right.
Because most often if an American asks you, how are you?
They're not really off.
They don't want and they often don't have time to hear a lot of detail about how you really are and how your family is.
They just want like, I'm doing all right.
What about you?
Yeah, in a way, it's really not a question.
It's more of a greeting.
Let's just put it in that category of a greeting.
It's the same as saying hello, right?
Good afternoon.
Good evening.
It's how are you?
It's not we're not waiting for an answer.
Now, if the person is really close to you and they call you and say how's everything going with XYZ?
In that case, they want to know.
Right.
Exactly.
That's very different.
You might even have someone say, how are you?
And once you respond by with like, I'm good, how are you?
Then they might say, how are things?
You know they're going to like ask it again, but in a clear way that it's like I actually really want to know how have you been?
Yeah, so there are signals.
And Aubrey, we could do another episode another day on how to listen for those signals.
Like, what are those signals?
Yeah, I could hear the word actually, right?
Actually, I really want to know or... And that tone, right?
Where you get kind of more serious, like...
How are things?
Clearly, I'm asking, I really want to know how you're doing.
But just the, hey, how's it going?
That's just a greeting.
Exactly.
And this is so cultural.
I mean, we know that this is different across cultures.
Maybe in your culture, guys, it does start off very in depth.
But I'm sure that you have greetings too where people don't expect much.
They just want to get things going.
So we have to put this in that category.
Yes, exactly.
This is where things can become really difficult with high context cultures who provide a lot more context, a lot more interesting information, even for kind of a throwaway question for Americans.
So once you get to where you sort of understand that intonation and you recognize this as a greeting, then you're going to avoid potentially awkward interactions where you know you're starting to really provide detail and they have to cut you off especially if it's at work and maybe say okay yeah, let's jump into the agenda here.
And you realize…
Oh, they didn't really have time to know.
Yeah, we don't want to get in that situation.
We don't want to get to the point where the person starts breaking eye contact, looking around.
Right?
That's so bad.
That is so bad.
I mean, do you think that Americans are fake in this sense?
What do you think?
No, I don't see it as fake because Americans really are just seeing this as a greeting.
For them, it's the same as hello.
They're not seeing it as the question, how are you?
They're seeing it as saying hello.
So once you understand that, you don't think of it at all, I think, as fake or rude.
You realize, oh, they're just saying hi.
But I think it's also good to keep in mind that Americans in general value their time, especially at work, but even running into a friend on the street.
It's rare that someone really has time to stop and chat at length.
So unless they've made it very clear, like let's meet for coffee for an hour, and they've made it clear to you that they have time and want to know those details.
Yeah.
In general, at any other time, they don't.
They've got a million things they're doing.
Yeah, this is so true.
It comes back to culture.
And we talked about high context cultures earlier.
Aubrey, that's really interesting conversation, right.
I mean, and one of the core will to.
As Aubrey said, time is a core cultural value in American culture.
And then the other one that we have to think about here is privacy.
So Americans do really sometimes put that wall up where you got to be at a certain level to get these details or to share these details.
Privacy really does matter.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Right.
If you run into someone you haven't seen for some time.
The average American is not going to expect you to share any personal details and they're not going to either, because there is that wall of you're an acquaintance at this point.
So we want to know, oh, how's it going?
But it's going to be a very different relationship to get much deeper than that.
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Yeah, so it comes back to culture.
So I'd love to have you guys come back to our social channels and let us know what it's like in your culture.
You know, the equivalent in your language of hi, how are you or how are you?
Is that a question or is it a greeting?
Right?
Yeah, exactly.
How would you answer that in your culture?
How would you want others to answer?
I would love to know this for every language and for every culture that I could possibly visit, because I wouldn't want to offend.
I wouldn't want to be rude.
I don't want that interaction, like you said Lindsay, where someone starts looking around and it's sort of awkward like how do I cut her off?
I'm so sorry.
I didn't realize.
Right.
Or on the flip side, if you're in a culture where they expect you to share those details, you don't want to appear cold or nonchalant or non-attached, right?
You want to be able to add those details if they're waiting for it.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's so interesting.
This is really the kind of thing that can help you become closer to people, build that network at work, because you have these very comfortable interactions.
You want to avoid any awkwardness.
And this, I think, is one of the biggest ways to do that.
I love it.
So good.
So good.
So Aubrey, what should our listeners make sure they do so they don't miss our show?
Yes, be sure to subscribe to All Ears English wherever you listen to your podcast.
If you found this, someone sent it to you at random, you want to make sure you're subscribed.
We have four episodes every week and you don't want to miss any of them.
Exactly.
So hit that button to follow or to subscribe or whatever it is you do when, where you listen to your podcast.
Make sure you get us in your queue.
Right, Aubrey?
Get us in your queue.
All right.
Very cool.
Talk to you very soon, Aubrey.
In the next one, we're going to talk about how to greet someone at the office.
We're going to the work culture.
Sweet.
I'll see you then.
See you then.
Bye.
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