I'm looking for the greeting plus the standard response. My favoured language would be Russian, but I'll accept anything that's a little more exotic than French, German, Italian, or Spanish.

Here's the scene-let:

Guy A hears doorbell, goes to front door to answer it.

Guy B immediately says "hello" or "good morning" or whatever in our chosen foreign language.

Guy A responds with...well, whatever the standard response would be. In English, I can only think of "How are you?" and "I'm fine" but I'm sure there's a lot more variety in other languages.

Thanks,
Yvonne

In (transliterated) Hebrew:

A: Shalom!

B: Boker tov. Mah shlomchah? (uh, that's if A is male)

A: Hakol b'seder.



(Loosely translated:

A: Hello!

B: Good morning. How are you?

A: Everything is good.)

It's probably an unlikely language, Y, but here's another possibility:

Guy 1: Dia dhuit.

Guy 2: Dia's Mhuire dhuit. Conas tá tú?

Guy 1: Táim go maith.

Guy 2: Dheas. Tar isteach.

Not that I could quite imagine anyone speaking Irish in the heart of Metropolis, or anywhere else other than the Gaeltacht, in the West of Ireland... but anyway.


Wendy

You didn't give me a translation, Wendy - I need to know what my characters are actually saying! Oh, and the more obscure, the better, really - so long as you think it's a language Clark would have come across at some point on his travels.

Yvonne

Translation:

Literal -

Guy 1: God be with you.
Guy 2: God and Mary be with you. How are you?
Guy 1: I'm well.
Guy 2: Good. Come inside.

The first two lines are standard Irish for Hello, believe it or not; it's what you say on greeting someone in Irish. And some will go to town on it, adding an entire panoply of saints. If you want to be effusive, you can begin with Dia's Mhuire dhuit, so that the other person has to reply with Dia's Mhuire dhuit agus Padraig. Or Dia's Mhuire dhuit agus Padraig 's Sheosamh 's na naohm go léir. Which means 'God and Mary and Patrick and Joseph and all the saints be with you.'

Yup, Irish is a weird language...


Wendy

Here are forms of greetings in 3 languages Hindi(used in India), Urdu(used in Pakistan), and Arabic (used in Middle-eastern countries).

HINDI :
A: "Namaste" / "namaskar" (with folded hands)
B: <respond with folded hands> or "namaste" or both action and speech; followed by "main aapki kya seva ker sankta hoon?" (i.e. What can I do for you?)

OR

A: "Namaste" / "namaskar" (with folded hands)
B: <respond with folded hands> or "namaste" or both action and speech; followed by "Aap kaise hain?" (i.e. How are you?)
A: "sab theek hai" (Everything is fine) / "main theek hoon" (I'm fine)
****

URDU:
A: "Salaam"
B: "Salaam, kya haal hai?" (how are you)
A: "Khuda ki rahmat hai" (I'm fine by God's grace)

OR

A: "Salaam"
B: "Salaam, pharmaiye?" (what can I do for you?)
***

ARABIC:
A: "Sabah-al-khair" (Good morning)
B: "Sabah-al-noor" (Good morning); followed by "Kaif halak" (how are you?)
A: "Al-humddalilah quaiz" (I'm fine by God's grace)

OR

A: "Salaam-wal-a-kum" (general greeting)
B: "Waal-ekum-as-salaam"; followed by "Kaif halak" (how are you?)
A: "Al-humddalilah quaiz" (I'm fine by God's grace)
***

Ooh, very exotic, Anks! Thank you.

Yeah, any language where the translation doesn't need a question mark at the end of the same sentence which required one in the original language must be extremely weird.

Yvonne

Huh? Oh wait! I got muddled in the translation. Go back and look at it again.


Wendy

Okay, this was an explanation of where you went wrong, but now that you've fixed the error, this is...um...a pointless sentence.

Yvonne

Afrikaans...

A: Goeie môre! (Good morning!)
B: Goeie môre! Hoe gaan dit? (Good morning! How are you?)
A: Goed, dankie. (Well, thanks.)
B: Gaaf. Kom binne! (Great. Come in!)

Mere

Here's some Russian, Yvonne :

A: Privet (informal hello)
B: Dobriy den, kak zhiviotsa? (good day, how's life?)
A: Ne ploho, sposibo. (Not bad, thanks)

A formal hello would be "zdrastvuy" or "zdtrastvuyte," the latter being plural - the plural is used for formal greetings the way it is in French, so it can be used to adress an adult or someone superior to you.

Julie

Hm, no Asian languages yet? I can help you there!

Here's Cantonese. By the way, all of these are just phonetic versions of the actual words/characters:

A: [opens door]
B: Wai! Jo sun! Nay ho ma? (Hey! Good morning! How are you?)
A: Gei ho, nay leh? (Pretty good, you?)
B: Gei ho, yow sum. (Pretty good, thanks for asking.)

And Mandarin:

A: [opens door]
B: Jau ahn! Ni hau! {Good morning! Hope you're well!)
A: Jau ahn, ni hau! (Good morning, hope you're well!)

Thai:

A (male): [opens door]
B (female): Sa wa dee kra! (Hello!)
A: Sa wa dee krab! (Hello!)

Korean:

A: [opens door]
B: Ahnyoung hashimnika! (Hello!)
A: Ahnyoung hasayyo! (Hello!)

Tagalog:

A: [opens door]
B: Magandang umaga! (Good morning!)
A: Magandang umaga, kumusta ka na? (Good morning, how are you?)
A: Sige, okay lang. (Fine, thank you.)
B: Oo! (Good!)

Hope this helps!

Mirage

Mirage the only time I ever use 'wai' is when I answer the phone though since I don't have too many Chinese Friends I tend to only say 'hello'. It's kind of like 'Moshi Moshi' the Japanese greeting over the phone when you answer it.

Well, I use "wai" all the time. It's really hard to convey over a set of alphabets because Chinese is a very musical language and saying a word in a slightly different tone completely changes the meaning. This "wai" was intended to be more of an exclamatory "Wai!" not like an interrogatory "Wai?" where the tone goes up, do you know what I mean? "Wai" as in...well, I'm grasping at different words here to clarify my intention...you know the Cantonese word for feed, as in feed a baby? That "wai" sound? Similar to that. Or maybe it should be "wei". I'm trying really hard.

Gosh, I hope this makes sense to you. I really know what I'm talking about, I swear! Cantonese was my first language.

Mirage

Yes I understand what you are talking about though by most standards my English is a whole lot better than my Chinese (or so I'm told) because I'm originally from Taiwan and my Dad is Cantonese even though he grew up in Vietnam. So at home I tend to get a mix of Cantonese, Mandarin and Hokkien rather than one straight dialect spoken at home.

Yvonnes, I'd tell you what they are in Vietnamese unfortunately I'd have to ask my dad first how to say it so I'll be back to tell you later!

Here's a Dutch example:

A: Hallo. (Hello.)

B: Goedenmorgen, hoe is het? (Good morning, how goes? - that's literal, in English you'd just say 'how are you')

A: Prima, en met jou? Kom binnen. (Fine, and you? Come inside)

B: Prima, bedankt. (Fine, thanks.)

That's sort of a standart start of a conversation between two people who don't know each other very well. Hope it helps.

Saskia

According to my dad there is no straight term for 'good morning' in Vietnamese. He told me that people say 'Cao' (pronounced as 'jau') which basically means 'hello'

I don't know if you still need it, but...

Swedish:

A: Hej.
B: Hej, hur är det?
A: Jodå, bara bra. Själv?

Translated:

A: Hi
B: Hi, how is it? (We Swedes have loads of ways saying "how are you" which would be translated differently like "hur mår du?" which would be translated to "how are you feeling?")
A: Yes/yeah, just fine. You? (The "yeah" isn't really important, but it's commonly used.)