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Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi".

But, really, the script you're meant to follow goes like this:

    Hey how are you?
    Hey, good, how about you?
    Pretty good

Then, if the conversation is meant to continue, which it most often is not, one of you says "So ... what's up in your life?" or "So ... how's that thing you're working on going?" or some other more specific question.

Edit: let’s also not forget that “howdy” is a shortened version of “how do you do”

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It's just a standard greeting. Personally, I find it weird if people actually tell me how they're going when I ask them.

It's even more peculiar/banal in French, where the conversation goes:

    Salut, ça va?
    Ça va, et toi?
    Ça va.

"Ça va" translates to "it is". So in essence, it's a completely meaningless exchange.

"Ça va." translates "It's going well", not "it is". Similarly, "Ça va?" translates to "Is it going well?".

It's as meaningless an exchange as most greetings (the only meaning being to actually acknowledge and greet the person), but it does mean something literally, and the exchange is technically more complete than when answering "How are you?" with "Hi".

That being said, you'll see someone answering "Salut, ça va?" with "Salut!" quite frequently as well. I would perhaps consider it slightly more of a misstep than in English, but only marginally so.

The literal translation of “Ça va” is neither “it is” nor “it goes well”, right? The literal translation is “it goes”. “It goes well” would be “ça va bien”, which is also used for both question and answer parts of a slightly longer standard greeting.

This isn’t a big distinction because I agree with both of you about the relative meaninglessness of the content of such a greeting in either language.

As a question it does literally translate to “How’s it going?” and then as a response it’s like “It’s going”, but translating common idioms like this completely literally word-by-word doesn’t really make sense. It’s sort of interesting to think about for the same reason that all idioms are interesting, but it’s not very helpful when it comes to translation.

Am I the only one that answers, "how's it going?" With "it goes."?

Because I definitely do that. I'd expect that to be a common idiom in any language. Somewhat surprised to read this exchange seeming to suggest otherwise.

But the above commenter is saying it doesn't translate 'literally' to that, but rather, that is the equivalent meaning.

The 'literal translation' would be translating word-by-word, which by definition isn't going to work for idioms:

> idiom > > A group of words established by usage > as having a meaning not deducible from > those of the individual words

Oxford Dictionary

I don't disagree with you, and in fact I believe the point of the GP to be exactly this -- these idioms' literal interpretations are a bit nonsensical. I was merely trying to point out that I think you two agree.

Well apparently my French is a bit rusty.

"Ça va" translates literally to "it goes".

So the above exchange would literally translate to:

    Hello, it goes?
    It goes, and you?
    It goes.

I guess it's no more banal than answering "how's it going" with "it's going", which isn't that uncommon for people to say. Answering "how's it going" with "not bad, yourself?" isn't really any better either.

Is read that as: "keeping on?" "Keeping on, and you?"

Seems like you could translate the spirit of that into English pretty reasonably.

"Hey, doing well?" "Doing well, and you?" "Doing well."

"It is" is "C'est"

I worked/lived in France for some time earlier in my career, you can just use ca va. No real need for salut or the et toi. I had this conversation many mornings in the office. Ca is closer to "it goes" than "it is" in this context. Va being the same as in Spanish.

Ca va?

Ca va ca va. Ca va?

Ca va.

Later, the same day, the exchanges goes:

- Re.

Some people hate "Re".

It's not meaningless, it's just not informational. It does not convey new information, it carries social bonding instead. If you want to know more about it, read Eric Berne's books, e.g. Games People Play.

Absolutely not. In case it's someone you don't know a colleague, you open a communication channel allowing them to switch to a different topic and indicating you are not currently busy or annoyed (in which case you would have added it to the "ca va" - "ca va, mais un peu presse/occupe en ce moment").

If it's someone you know well or who knows you, in the timings of responses and the expression of the face you are able to pick up how they're feeling, if something is going on in their lives or is bothering them.

It's much less scripted than the American "hi, how are you", which can only have one answer and always need to have the same expression.

   ack?

   ack!

handshake complete

I wonder if it's an Australian thing for the response to "how ya goin'?" to be "how ya goin'?".

I've always considered the standard reply to be "yeah nah, not too bad, yourself?". I think that it's possibly more Kiwi than Australian though.

I love how often phrases start with "yeah..."

usually we'd do a yeah nah, as an optimized "I hear what you are saying, but that's not true... < inform the person of the truth >"

as in "You're looking well", "yeah, nah, been a bit crook lately"

As well, the South African “howzit”, which from my observation isn’t even actually a question but just invites the other person to say what they wanted to say.

In the south of England we have "alright?". The only valid answer is "alright?.

"Alright" I think is used all over England, maybe even the UK, it's not specific to the south :-)

Yeah I find that annoying. It means nothing and is just a waste of everyone's time, much like:

"How are you?" "Not bad, yourself?" "Good, so I have this problem..."

"Hey, how was your weekend?" "Not bad actually, you?" "Yeah not bad"

I mean, you clearly have no interest in other person's life, so why have stupid, dull, pointless greetings like that?

We also have this in certain corners of the U.S.:

A: "'sup [man]?" B: "'sup?"

(It's also stated only has like a half-question or less—the usual question lilt is deemphasized.)

In Germany, people say "Na?" or "Na du?" to which the other person usually responds the same.

It's not easy to translate but I think it's quite similar to the greetings mentioned above. Literally it's something like: Well? You? (and not 'well' in the sense of goodness, but rather questioning)

It's an interesting greeting and as a foreigner seemed very odd at first.

Which part/s of Germany did you hear that in?

Several areas, but mostly Northern Germany. It's also quite common in movies/TVs, so I think it's quite widespread.

> You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi".

It's not that they don't notice, it's that "How are you" can be read as either a question or a greeting in modern English.

It's even more pronounced with other phrases. If you're introduced to three people and they respond "Hi", "Hello", "What's up?", it's understood that they're all pretty much saying the same thing.

I've heard that this is more common with American English, and that Americans are sometimes a bit taken aback when the response is "I'm well, how about you?" or something taking the question more literally like that.

Sometimes, yeah. In the US I've seen it go both ways, so it's not a hard and fast rule, but it does seem to be a thing.

I always forget the "how about you" part. Somebody asks, "how are you", and I say "good" because I'm supposed to say _something_ and my wife reminds me later that it was rude not to ask how they were so that they could say "good", too.

I consider that normal???

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