Greetings and leave-taking

Look again at the text about ‘An excursion to Bogor Botanic Garden’. Pay attention to the first sentence (i.e. All right, everybody, I’ll tell you about this great place.) You can use this first sentence to open a conversation before you share your past experience to others. However, you can also use greeting to open a conversation and use leave-taking for closing.

Formal Greeting

• Good morning.
• Good afternoon.
• Good evening.
• Good morning, sir.

Informal greeting

• Hi, Lizzy!
• Morning, Jim!
• Hello.

Initial greetings

• How are you?
• How’s it going?
• How are you doing?
• How’s life?

Responding to initial greetings

• Very well, thank you and how are you?
• I’m good/okay/alright.
• Very well, thank you.
• Oh, pretty good.
• Not too bad, thanks.
• Fine, thanks.
• Excellent.

Pre-closing

• OK then…
• I’ve got to go now.
• So, I’ll see you next week.
• I think I’d better be going now.
• Well, it’s time for me to leave.
• I think it’s already late at night.
• I must be going home.

Closing/leave-taking

• Good bye.
• Bye-Bye; Bye; Bye now; See you. Take care.
• See you later ---- Fine.
• See you soon ----- OK.
• See you tonight ----- All right.
• Good night.