Re: "How are you", in different languages?

Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting "E. Notagain" <ecg321@...>:
> > Second: What, in your language (conlang and natlang), is the closest
> > translation to the English "How are you" (conversation starter and
> > greeting)?
In Piata, the usual greeting is literally "how" plus an emphatic
particle. I haven't decided the actual words yet, but probably
something like _ni che_, _ni_ being 'how' and _che_ one of the
emphatic particles. (Okay, so it's decided then. No wait, that
sounds just like "Nietzsche". Hey, Friedrich! Ni che? :D  I'd
better come up with something else.)

> Well, what _I_ mostly use in this function is _(Och) Hur lever livet med [insert
> name] då?_, which means "(And) How is life living with [insert name] then", but
> I'm afraid I'm pretty alone in this usage. A more common Swedish expression for
> the same might be _hallå, hur mås (det)?_ "hello, how is (it) feeling?".
I just like to point out that if someone on this list ever comes
to Sweden and don't want to come out like a total geek or hillbilly
(and here I'm refering to anyone not living in Stockholm), </SARCASM>
you probably shouldn't use _hur mås det?_.

The absolutely most common way to say "How are you?" is _Hur är det?_,
which is pronounced /hu"rer@/ or /hu"r&r@/. Another common word is _Läget?_
/lE:g@t/, which is pretty much 'Wzup?'.

If you were taught _Hur mår du?_ in some TY-book, it rather gives the
impression that you really want to know how someone is feeling... :P

Daniel Andreasson

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