Hello in Mandarin: How to Say Ni Hao and More

Ni hao: the standard hello in Mandarin

The standard way to say hello in Mandarin is 你好, pinyin nǐ hǎo, and it simply means hello. It is built from two characters: 你 (nǐ), meaning "you," and 好 (hǎo), meaning "good." Put together they land somewhere close to "you good," which is the Mandarin way of wishing someone well when you meet them. It is the first phrase almost every learner starts with, and for good reason: it works in nearly any situation, with almost anyone, at any time of day.

Say nǐ hǎo when you walk into a shop, when you meet someone for the first time, when you answer the door, or when you simply want to acknowledge a person politely. It carries no strong formality in either direction. It is not stiff, but it is not overly casual either, which is exactly what makes it so useful as a default. If you only ever learned one Mandarin greeting, this would be the one, and you would rarely be caught out.

The pinyin tone marks matter here, and we will spend a full section on them below, but the short version is this. The nǐ in 你 carries a dipping tone that falls and then rises, and the hǎo in 好 carries the same dipping shape. When two of these dipping tones sit next to each other, as they do in nǐ hǎo, the first one shifts and is said with a rising tone instead. So nǐ hǎo comes out sounding like a rising "ni" followed by a dipping "hao." Native speakers do this automatically, and once you have heard it a few times, so will you.

One more thing worth knowing early: 好 (hǎo), that second syllable meaning "good," is a workhorse. You will meet it again and again in greetings throughout this guide, because the Mandarin pattern for many hellos is simply "something + good." Morning good, evening good, teacher good, everyone good. Learn to recognize 好 and half the greetings below will already feel familiar.

Tones, and why they change everything

You cannot really learn to say hello in Mandarin without meeting the tones, because Mandarin is a tonal language: the pitch of your voice is part of the word, not just its mood. The same syllable said with a different tone is a different word. The classic example is ma, which depending on the tone can mean mother, hemp, horse, or scold. This is why nǐ hǎo only sounds like a greeting when the pitch moves the right way, and it is why learning the tones from your very first phrase is worth the small effort.

Mandarin has four main tones, plus a fifth "neutral" tone that is light and unstressed. Here is what each one does, using the syllable ma as the anchor so you can hear the shape:

Now apply this to the greeting. Both 你 (nǐ) and 好 (hǎo) are third tone, the dipping one. The catch is a small rule that native speakers follow without thinking: when two third tones come together, the first one turns into a second tone, the rising one. So although you will see nǐ hǎo written with two dipping marks, you actually say it as ní hǎo: a rising "ni" gliding straight into a dipping "hao." You do not need to memorize the rule as grammar. Just remember that the hello itself sounds like "ni" going up and "hao" dipping down, and you will have it.

Do the tones really matter for a beginner? Yes, and here is the honest picture. If you say nǐ hǎo with flat, toneless English rhythm, a native speaker will almost always still understand you, because context does a lot of the work and "hello" has no rival meaning to confuse it with. But two things happen if you skip the tones. First, you sound noticeably off, in the way a robot voice sounds off, and people notice. Second, and more important, the toneless habit you build on nǐ hǎo follows you to words where the tone genuinely decides the meaning, and there it will cause real misunderstandings. Learning the pitch on your first phrase is the cheapest tone practice you will ever get.

Nin hao: the polite, formal hello

When you want to show respect, you swap one character and say 您好, pinyin nín hǎo. The greeting is the same shape as nǐ hǎo, but the ordinary "you," 你 (nǐ), is replaced with 您 (nín), a respectful, formal version of "you." The meaning is still simply "hello," but with a layer of courtesy added, roughly the difference between a plain "hi" and a warm "good day to you."

Use nín hǎo when you are speaking to someone older than you, to a teacher, to a customer or a client, to an official, or to anyone in a position you want to honor. It is the natural choice in business and service settings, which is why staff in hotels, banks, and nice restaurants will often greet you with nín hǎo rather than nǐ hǎo. Notice that 您 (nín) is second tone, the rising one, and it stays rising here because it is no longer a third tone bumping into another third tone. So nín hǎo is a rising "nin" into a dipping "hao."

You do not need to agonize over choosing between the two. As a learner, defaulting to nǐ hǎo with peers and reaching for nín hǎo when greeting someone clearly senior or in a formal role will cover you almost everywhere. Erring toward the polite form with an older stranger is never a mistake, and people will appreciate the effort. Once you spend a little time around native speakers, the right choice starts to feel automatic, the same way you sense when to say "sir" in English.

Good morning, afternoon, and evening

Mandarin has a neat set of time-of-day greetings, and they all follow the same simple recipe you already know: a word for the time, plus 好 (hǎo), "good." Once you see the pattern, the whole set falls into place at once. These are common, friendly, and a nice way to sound less like a textbook and more like someone who actually lives in the language.

The two you will reach for most are 早上好 (zǎoshang hǎo), good morning, and 晚上好 (wǎnshang hǎo), good evening. A quick 早 (zǎo) on its own, just the "morning" character, is an even more casual "morning!" that friends and coworkers toss at each other, much like a clipped "mornin'" in English. Keep the two apart in your mind: 晚上好 (wǎnshang hǎo) is a greeting when you arrive in the evening, while 晚安 (wǎn'ān) is "good night," said when you leave or head to bed. The character 安 (ān) means "peace," so you are literally wishing someone a peaceful night.

Have you eaten? The greeting that isn't about food

One of the most charming things about greetings in Mandarin is that a very common one is not "hello" at all. It is 你吃了吗, pinyin nǐ chī le ma, which literally asks "have you eaten?" You will also hear the shorter 吃饭了吗 (chī fàn le ma), "have you eaten a meal?" Both are warm, friendly greetings, especially among older people and especially around mealtimes.

Here is the key thing every learner needs to understand: this is not a real question about food, and it is absolutely not an invitation to eat. It works exactly like "how are you?" or "how's it going?" in English, where nobody actually expects a medical report. The words ask about a meal, but the meaning is simply a friendly acknowledgment, a way of showing you care about the other person's wellbeing. Its roots go back to times when a full stomach was not to be taken for granted, and asking after someone's meal was a genuine kindness. The phrase stuck around long after as a pleasant social ritual.

Because it is not a literal question, you answer it lightly and move on. The expected reply is just that yes, you have eaten, or that no, not yet, without any detail. A simple 吃了 (chī le), "I've eaten," said with a smile, is perfect, even if you have not actually eaten. You can bounce it back with 你呢 (nǐ ne), "and you?" If someone truly means it as an invitation, that will be obvious from the rest of what they say. On its own, treat chī le ma as a hello, reply briefly, and keep walking.

Wei: answering the phone in Mandarin

When a phone rings in China, nobody picks up and says nǐ hǎo. They say 喂, pinyin wéi, with a rising, questioning tone. This little sound is the Mandarin equivalent of the English "hello?" you say when you answer a call, and it is used almost exclusively on the phone. You would not walk up to someone in the street and say wéi as a greeting; it belongs to the moment you pick up and cannot yet see who is there.

The tone is worth a note. Said with a rising second tone, wéi sounds soft and questioning, like "hello, are you there?" There is also a falling fourth-tone version, wèi, which is the "correct" dictionary tone and can sound more abrupt, closer to shouting "hey!" to get attention. On the phone, the gentle rising wéi is what you want, and it is what you will hear the other person reply with too. A typical opening is both people saying wéi once or twice to confirm the line is live before anyone gets to business.

A natural phone opening might run like this. You pick up and say 喂 (wéi). The caller replies 喂 (wéi), then perhaps 你好 (nǐ hǎo) to be polite, and asks who they are speaking to or introduces themselves. If you are answering in a workplace, you might follow your wéi with nín hǎo and your company name. So the phone gives you a small script: wéi to answer, then a normal nǐ hǎo or nín hǎo once the conversation is truly underway.

Greeting groups and showing respect

Saying hello to more than one person, or to someone in a particular role, uses the same building blocks with a small twist. To greet a group directly, you can make "you" plural: 你们好, pinyin nǐmen hǎo, where 们 (men) turns 你 (nǐ) into "you all." More common and more natural for a room full of people, though, is 大家好, pinyin dàjiā hǎo, literally "big family good," meaning "hello everyone." A speaker opening a talk or a host addressing guests will almost always use dàjiā hǎo.

The same pattern of "role + good" lets you greet someone by their position, which is polite and common in China, particularly at school and work. The clearest example is greeting a teacher: 老师好, pinyin lǎoshī hǎo, where 老师 (lǎoshī) means "teacher." Students say this to teachers as a matter of course. You will hear the same construction applied to other titles and surnames, so a manager surnamed Wang might be greeted with their title plus hǎo. The takeaway is simple: 好 (hǎo) attaches to almost any person-word to form a respectful greeting, which is why learning that one character pays off so many times.

Casual greetings friends actually use

Here is something the first chapter of a textbook rarely tells you: among close friends and young people, a plain nǐ hǎo can sound a touch formal, even textbook-ish, a little like greeting your best friend with a stiff "good day." It is never wrong, but it is not always what people actually say to each other. As you grow more comfortable, it is worth picking up the relaxed greetings that friends really use, so you sound like a person and not a phrasebook.

The most direct casual options are borrowed straight from English and adapted to Mandarin sounds. 哈喽 (hālōu) is "hello," and 嚍 (hāi) is "hi," both used lightly and playfully, especially by younger speakers and in text messages. They carry the same easy, informal feel as their English originals. You will see them constantly in chat apps.

Beyond borrowed hellos, friends often greet each other not with "hello" at all but with a light, situational question, the same way English speakers say "hey, what's up?" without wanting an answer. Common ones include asking where someone is headed or whether they have eaten, both used purely as friendly noises rather than real inquiries. And very often, the warmest greeting between people who know each other is simply the person's name or their nickname, said with a smile. Calling out a friend's name is itself the hello.

That last one deserves a mention because it may look familiar. 好久不见, pinyin hǎo jiǔ bú jiàn, means "long time no see," and it maps word for word onto the English phrase: 好 (hǎo) good, 久 (jiǔ) long time, 不 (bú) not, 见 (jiàn) see. Many people believe the English expression was borrowed from this very Chinese pattern. Either way, it is a genuine, everyday greeting for someone you have not seen in a while, and it is a fun one to have ready.

How are you, and what comes after hello

Hello rarely stands alone. In English you glue "how are you?" onto it without thinking, and Mandarin has its own set of follow-ups so a greeting does not just hang in the air. The textbook "how are you" is 你好吗, pinyin nǐ hǎo ma, which literally tacks the question particle 吗 (ma) onto nǐ hǎo to turn "you good" into "are you good?" It is grammatically perfect and every learner knows it, but be aware that native speakers use it less than you might expect, and to some it can sound a little formal or even like something a foreigner learned from a book.

What natives actually say more often is 最近怎么样, pinyin zuìjìn zěnmeyàng, meaning "how have you been lately?" It feels current and genuine, the way "how've you been?" feels warmer than "how are you?" in English. For answering, a simple 我很好-style reply built on 很 (hěn), "very," works, and you can always return the question with 你呢 (nǐ ne), "and you?" Between hello and the real conversation, this little exchange is the social glue.

When you first meet someone, the phrase you want is 认识你很高兴, pinyin rènshi nǐ hěn gāoxìng, "pleased to meet you," literally "to know you very happy." It is the natural thing to say right after names are exchanged. And when the conversation ends, the standard goodbye is 再见, pinyin zàijiàn, literally "again see," meaning "see you again." Friends might soften it to 回头见 (huítóu jiàn), "see you later," or borrow the English "bye-bye." With hello, how-are-you, nice-to-meet-you, and goodbye, you have the full arc of a polite encounter.

Full reference table

Here is every greeting from this guide in one place, with the characters shown as you will read them, the pinyin with tone marks, the English meaning, and a note on when to use it. Keep it handy, but remember that the real learning happens when you say these out loud, so treat the table as a launchpad, not a finish line.

If you want to keep building from here, the next step is vocabulary and structure. Our guide to common Chinese words for beginners gives you the everyday words to slot around these greetings, and Chinese numbers with pinyin and tones covers counting, which comes up the moment you start shopping or telling time. For the bigger picture of tones, pinyin, characters, and a realistic study plan, see how to learn Chinese.

Turning hello into real conversation with SPAIKING

You can read every greeting on this page and still freeze when a real person says nǐ hǎo back to you. That gap between knowing a phrase and producing it out loud, at speed, with the right tones, is the whole challenge of a tonal language, and it does not close by reading. It closes by speaking. This is exactly the problem SPAIKING is built to solve.

SPAIKING gives you an AI partner to actually talk with in Mandarin, so your first nǐ hǎo lands in a real exchange rather than sitting on a flashcard. You say the greeting, it answers, and the conversation moves, which forces you to produce the words under the gentle pressure of a live back-and-forth. Because tones are the hardest part of getting a Mandarin hello right, having your pitch heard and corrected as you speak is worth far more than any written tone mark. You find out in the moment whether your nǐ really rose and your hǎo really dipped.

The parts that make it fit learning to greet in Mandarin:

• It is always available. Practice zǎoshang hǎo in the morning and wǎnshang hǎo at night, whenever you have a spare few minutes, with no partner to schedule.
• It hears your tones. The difference between a right and wrong Mandarin greeting is pitch, and SPAIKING gives you feedback on it in real time, which a textbook never can.
• It is judgment-free. You can stumble over chī le ma ten times while the AI keeps the conversation going, which is what finally gets nervous learners to speak out loud.
• It builds from hello to conversation. Start with greetings, then let the exchange grow into introductions, small talk, and the phrases that come after hello.

Learning to say hello in Mandarin is the perfect first step, and it is also the perfect first thing to say to a partner who will answer back. Drill the greetings here until you recognize them, then say them out loud in a real conversation until you can produce them without thinking. You can start on the pricing page and turn nǐ hǎo from a phrase you know into a greeting you can actually say.