Lesson 1
“Morning! Alright?”
The first thing you bump into when you visit England is saying hello. Unless you are a businessman of some sort, you will definitely hear a thing or two that you’ve never heard before at your English classes. At least not in this context.
When you meet someone, you can say ‘hello’, literally, or ‘hi’, but you will most likely hear ‘Alright?’ in the reply. Even if you’re wandering in a shop or at the market, don’t be surprised when the salesmen say “Alright, love/mate?” instead of “Can I help?” (i.e. they are not really keen on your well-being).
And what do you have to say? If it’s a friend of yours, or someone you know by name, they most probably greet you by name as well: “You alright, XY?” So you just return “I’m alright, XY! And you?”. If you’re lazy, just reply with the same (Alright, X?). Easy enough, isn’t it?
Of course, you can still carry on using “Good morning!” as it does not taste too formal in English. Even so, they’re too lazy to say the whole phrase. You will often hear a simple ‘Morning!’ To be polite, you just have to combine these: see Example No. 1.
Example 1:
“Morning, mate/love/XY, you alright?”
“Yes, darling/mate/XY, and you?”
“I’m okay.”
The second thing you will notice that the English can never run short of mates, loves, darlings, dears, sweet’arts etc. (See one of the next lessons.) Most likely this is a derivative of the lack of separate formal/informal cases of address in English. And you shouldn’t be upset when people call you ‘mate’ in the street. ‘Sir’ or ‘madam’ (ma’m) are the very words of being formal – but you won’t be hearing those every day unless you’re a manager!
And how to say goodbye, then? You’ll most likely never hear ‘goodbye’. Some people may say ‘bye-bye’, but the most common is ‘bye’. The next one is “I’ll see you later!” or “See you later!”, but most likely “See you!” or even “Later!”
A side-note: in English, “see you later” can incorporate the meaning that you may not see one another for a prolonged period of time. In other words, it is an equivalent of saying “bye”. In every other instance, you can say “See you in a bit/a sec/a minute!”
In a really informal instance (friends to friends etc.), you can always use ‘tara’ (t’ra) for bye. Make it sound “tshrah!”
