你好 (nǐ hǎo) is the standard, all purpose hello in Mandarin Chinese, and it works at any time of day with almost anyone. Swap in 您好 (nín hǎo) when you're greeting someone older or a stranger in a formal setting, and drop to a plain 嗨 (hāi) with close friends. Here's the version that fits each moment, plus the phone greeting and the goodbye that trip up most learners.
The one you need: 你好
你好 (nǐ hǎo) literally translates to "you good." Unlike Japanese or Korean, Mandarin doesn't reshuffle its greeting by time of day, so the same phrase covers a 7am coffee run and a dinner reservation. Use it with shopkeepers, coworkers, strangers, anyone you don't know well yet.
More respectful: 您好
Swap 你好 for 您好 (nín hǎo) with someone clearly older than you, a boss, or a stranger you want to address formally, a hotel front desk clerk, for instance. 您 (nín) is simply a more polite "you." Everything else about the phrase stays put.
Casual: 嗨
Among friends, a borrowed 嗨 (hāi), essentially the English "hi," shows up constantly, especially with younger speakers. A quick, casually tossed off 你好 works just as well. Tone carries the casualness here, not a different word.
| Chinese | Pinyin | Use it with |
|---|---|---|
| 你好 | nǐ hǎo | Anyone, any time, the safe default |
| 您好 | nín hǎo | Elders, strangers, formal settings |
| 早 / 早上好 | zǎo / zǎoshang hǎo | Morning specifically, casual or fuller |
| 嗨 | hāi | Friends, casual, mostly younger speakers |
| 喂 | wéi | Answering the phone, nowhere else |
On the phone: 喂
Like Korean's separate phone hello, Chinese has one too: 喂 (wéi). You'll never hear it used face to face. It exists specifically for the moment you pick up a call and can't yet see who's on the line.
Saying goodbye
- 再见 (zàijiàn): the standard goodbye, literally "see again," safe anywhere.
- 拜拜 (bàibai): a casual "bye bye" borrowed straight from English, everywhere among younger speakers.
- 一会儿见 (yīhuǐr jiàn): "see you in a bit," for someone you'll cross paths with again soon.
Chinese goodbyes don't split by who's leaving the way Korean's do. 再见 works no matter which direction you're headed.
Thanks, while you're at it
- 谢谢 (xièxiè), thank you, fits every register.
- 不客气 (bú kèqi), you're welcome, literally "don't be polite."
The mistake most learners make
Textbooks pair hello with 你好吗 (nǐ hǎo ma), "how are you," as the automatic follow up. But native speakers rarely talk this way. It reads closer to a health check in than a casual greeting. A native speaker is far more likely to say 你好 and roll straight into the actual conversation, or ask something concrete like 吃了吗 (chī le ma), "have you eaten," which functions as an everyday how are you in a lot of regions.
Mandarin isn't Cantonese
Everything above is Mandarin, spoken across mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore. Hong Kong and parts of southern China speak Cantonese instead, where the same characters 你好 are pronounced nei5 hou2, a genuinely different sound. Don't assume Mandarin pronunciation carries over if Hong Kong is part of the trip. The characters match. The sound doesn't.
Read the characters as you go
Tone changes meaning in Chinese, so a phrase list only gets you partway: mā, má, mǎ and mà are four different words. Point a camera translator at a sign, a menu or a text and it shows you the English and the pinyin side by side, so what you're reading and what you're hearing start to line up. For the full toolkit on signs, photos and text, see how to translate Chinese to English, and for the food specifically, Chinese menu translator covers dish names, spice levels and allergies. Already got a photo of something you can't read yet? The same camera reads that too, see translate Chinese from a photo. And if the trip covers Japan as well, the greeting habits are worth comparing with how to say hello in Japanese. Yomi runs all of it, camera, photo import and text, offline on your iPhone, so the greetings above pair with a way to read everything else you'll run into.