How to Say Hello in Chinese: Ni Hao and What Locals Say Instead

Hello in Chinese is 你好, nǐ hǎo, and it is the answer every textbook gives. It is also the greeting native speakers use least among themselves. Nǐ hǎo is correct, polite, and slightly formal, the linguistic equivalent of "how do you do". Between friends, colleagues and family, Chinese people greet each other with something else entirely: a name, a title, or a question about whether you have eaten. This guide covers both, so you can be correct with a stranger and natural with everyone else.

The Essential Chinese Greetings

Chinese	Pinyin	When to use it
你好	nǐ hǎo	Hello, polite, strangers and first meetings
您好	nín hǎo	The respectful you, for elders, clients, officials
你们好	nǐmen hǎo	Hello to a group
早上好	zǎoshang hǎo	Good morning
早	zǎo	"Morning!", short and very common
晚上好	wǎnshang hǎo	Good evening
喂	wéi	Hello on the phone, only on the phone
你吃了吗	nǐ chī le ma	"Have you eaten?", a real everyday greeting
最近怎么样	zuìjìn zěnmeyàng	"How've you been lately?"
好久不见	hǎojiǔ bù jiàn	Long time no see, the literal source of the English phrase
很高兴认识你	hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ	Nice to meet you
欢迎	huānyíng	Welcome

The one to notice is 你吃了吗, "have you eaten?". It is not an invitation to dinner and it is not small talk about food. It is a greeting, the rough equivalent of "how's it going", rooted in a time when the honest answer mattered. The expected reply is simply chī le, "I have", whether or not you actually have.

What Chinese People Say Instead of Ni Hao

Among people who know each other, the greeting is usually not a greeting word at all:

A name or a title. Walking into the office, you say Wáng lǎoshī (Teacher Wang) or Lǐ jīnglǐ (Manager Li). Addressing someone by their role IS the hello. To an older neighbour, āyí (auntie) or shūshu (uncle) does the same job.
An observation about the obvious. Chūqù a? ("Going out?") to someone leaving the building. Xiàbān le? ("Off work?") to a colleague with their coat on. To English ears this sounds like stating the obvious. In Chinese it is warm.
早 on its own, at work in the morning, the way an English speaker says "morning".

Nǐ hǎo between close friends can even sound cold, the way "good day to you, sir" would in English. It is not wrong. It is just distant.

Ni Hao or Nin Hao? The Respect You Can Hear

Chinese does not have a tu/vous system across the whole grammar, but it does have one crucial pair:

你好 (nǐ hǎo) uses 你, the ordinary "you".
您好 (nín hǎo) uses 您, the respectful "you".

Use nín hǎo with someone visibly older, a client, a professor, an official, or anyone you want to show deference to. It is especially expected in Beijing and the north, and slightly less used in the south. Nobody is ever offended by nín, so when the situation feels formal, reach for it.

Pronunciation: What the Pinyin Hides

Three details do most of the work, and all three are about tones.

你好 is not said with the tones it is written with. Both syllables are third tone (nǐ hǎo), but two third tones in a row never survive: the first one changes to a second tone. So nǐ hǎo actually comes out as ní hǎo. This is called tone sandhi, it is automatic for natives, and it is invisible in the pinyin you are reading.

The tone is not decoration, it is the word. hǎo (third tone) means good. hào (fourth tone) means to like, or a number. Different words, same letters. There is no "close enough" in Chinese: a wrong tone is a wrong word.

喂 changes tone by context. On the phone it is usually said wéi (second tone), a softer, questioning "hello". Said as wèi (fourth tone), it becomes "hey!", used to get someone's attention, and it can sound rude.

This is exactly where written guides run out of road. Pinyin can show you a tone mark, but it cannot put the melody in your mouth, and a tone you have only ever read is a tone you cannot produce under pressure. The only fix is to hear a native say the whole phrase, then say it back out loud, several times, until your mouth stops resisting. That listen and repeat loop is called shadowing, and for a tonal language it is not optional, it is the entire game. It is how the Hyperpolyglot app handles every phrase: real sentences, native audio, looped until they come out automatically. Available on iOS, Android, and Web.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Using 你好 with everyone, forever. It is your greeting for strangers and first meetings. With people you know, use their name, their title, or 早.
Reading the tones straight off the page. Nǐ hǎo is pronounced ní hǎo. Learn the phrase from audio and the sandhi handles itself.
Saying 喂 in person. It is the phone hello. Used face to face, it means "oi!".
Answering 你吃了吗 literally. It is a greeting, not an offer. Chī le and move on.
Ignoring 您. With an elderly stranger or a client, nín hǎo costs you nothing and signals everything.

Bonus: How to Say Goodbye in Chinese

再见 (zàijiàn), goodbye, literally "again see". Correct everywhere, slightly formal.
拜拜 (bái bái), borrowed straight from English "bye bye", and by far the most common casual goodbye today.
明天见 (míngtiān jiàn), "see you tomorrow". The pattern is productive: huítóu jiàn, see you later.
慢走 (màn zǒu), literally "walk slowly", what a host says to a departing guest. There is no English equivalent, and using it correctly is a small flex.
晚安 (wǎn'ān), good night, when the day is genuinely over.

Learn nǐ hǎo, nín hǎo, zǎo and zàijiàn with real audio, drill the tones until they are reflexes rather than calculations, and you can open a conversation anywhere from Beijing to Taipei.

Keep Reading

Language Islands -- the real-sentence method that turns greetings into actual conversations
The Shadowing Technique -- how to drill pronunciation until it becomes automatic
How to Learn Multiple Languages at the Same Time