How are you? in German
How do you ask "How are you?" in German – and how do you reply? You’ll learn some formal and informal ways to ask people how they are in this free German audio lesson.
We all like to make a good first impression, and feeling confident with some basic German will help you do just that. And because you never know when you might need to say “I’m sorry” in German, we’ll teach you that too.
Listen carefully to the German pronunciation and practice speaking aloud. Make sure you take the first opportunity to try these phrases out on a native speaker – it will help you to remember them!
Asking how are you in German
For friends or family :
For strangers or more senior persons:
What do you say if someone asks you one of these questions?
A common follow-up question is , “And you?”, “Und Ihnen?” or more informal “Und dir?”
If someone tells you that he or she is not feeling well you could say the following…
If someone is feeling great you might want to say the following…
The above words are extremely important. From experience, I know that the most important phrase in any language is how to say you’re sorry!
Others disagree. They say that there are THREE important phrases that you absolutely must know in any language. They are:
Hmm, I can’t think of a situation in which I’d need to use all three, but I’ll leave it to your imagination!
Bis bald!
Paul Weber
Rocket German
P.S. If you’d like to improve your learning, practice makes perfect!
Exercise 1. Pretend that you are meeting a friend of yours named Sandra. Write in your response in German to the questions below. (There’s not just one single right answer.)
You may want to print these exercises out.| Sandra: Hallo! |
| You: _________________________________________________ |
| Sandra: Wie geht’s dir? |
| You: _________________________________________________ |
| Sandra: Sehr gut, danke!! |
| You: _________________________________________________ |
Exercise 2. Read the following conversation and translate it into English below.
| Nik: Hallo Paul, wie geht's? |
| Paul: Nict schlecht, und dir? |
| Nik: Ich bin ein bisschen müde. |
| Paul : Das tut mir leid. |
| Nik: _________________________________________________ |
| Paul: _________________________________________________ |
| Nik: _________________________________________________ |
| Paul: _________________________________________________ |
