Hindi greetings beyond namaste: what families actually say

The Hindi greeting everyone knows is "namaste," and it will never be wrong. But it is one of about a dozen greetings in daily use, and in most families it is not the one you will hear most often. The everyday opener is usually a question rather than a word: "kaise ho?" (how are you, to a man) or "kaisi ho?" (to a woman), or the one that actually starts conversations, "aur batao?" (so, tell me). This post covers all of them, sorted by who you are talking to, so you can pick the right one without thinking.

I'm Akhil. I grew up hearing these, and I have watched my wife learn them from the outside, which turns out to be the more useful vantage point. She discovered fast that "namaste" gets you through the doorway and then leaves you stranded. The greeting is easy. What comes ten seconds later is the part nobody teaches.

The short answer: five greetings that cover almost everything

If you bank only two, make them "namaste" and "aur batao". The first opens the door. The second keeps you in the room.

Namaste, namaskar, pranam: the respect ladder

These three are the same gesture at three heights.

Namaste is universal and un-losable. Palms together at chest height, a small nod. It works for a grandmother, a shopkeeper, a colleague, and a stranger at a wedding. It is also a goodbye, which is convenient: you can bookend an entire visit with one word.

Namaskar is the dressed-up version. You will hear it on the news, in speeches, and from people being deliberately courteous. It is not stiffer in a bad way, just more formal, the difference between "hello" and "good evening".

Pranam (pruh-NAAM) is for elders specifically, and it carries real warmth. In many families it comes with a bow toward the elder's feet, sometimes a touch, sometimes just the motion. The elder responds by placing a hand on your head or shoulder, or by saying something like "khush raho" (stay happy) or "jeete raho" (live long). If you are a partner meeting older relatives, knowing what "pranam" means matters more than performing it. Watch what your partner does and follow at whatever distance feels honest. Nobody is grading you, and a gesture done because you were told it works lands differently from one done because you meant it.

Greetings that tell you which family you are in

Hindi is spoken across communities that greet each other differently. None of these are exotic and none of them are tests. They are just what different households say, and recognising one tells you something warm about where you are standing.

The rule is simple and it removes all the anxiety: mirror what you are given. If someone says "sat sri akal", say "sat sri akal" back. You are not claiming anything by doing that. You are doing the same thing you do when someone says "morning" instead of "hello".

If you are unsure, "namaste" remains correct everywhere. It is the greeting that never needs a decision.

The time-of-day greetings nobody actually uses

Every Hindi textbook teaches "subh prabhat" for good morning and "shubh ratri" for good night. Both are real Hindi. Both are also, in ordinary conversation, close to unused. You will meet them in a school assembly or a formal broadcast, not in a kitchen.

What people actually say in the morning is "good morning", in English, absorbed completely into everyday speech. Same with "good night". This surprises learners who expected a Hindi word to exist for every English one, and it is one of the clearest examples of what Hinglish really is: not laziness, just the version of the language that households settled on. If you want the longer version of that argument, I wrote it in Hinglish vs Hindi.

One genuine time-based phrase does earn its keep: "so gaye?" (have you slept, informal) or "so gaye kya?" as a late-night text. It is affectionate and extremely common on WhatsApp.

How are you, and the endings that trip people up

This is where most learners make their first visible mistake, and it is worth ten minutes to get right.

The ending of "kaise ho" changes with the gender of the person you are speaking to, not your own gender.

"Kya haal hai?" is the escape hatch, and I recommend it warmly to anyone still building confidence. It means roughly "what's the state of things", it carries no gender ending, and it sounds natural rather than careful. The only thing it is not is formal, so keep "kaise hain aap?" for the first meeting with an elder.

The choice between "aap", "tum" and "tu" sits underneath all of this and matters more than the greeting itself. "Aap" is respectful and is what you use for anyone older or newly met. "Tum" is for peers and people younger than you. "Tu" is for very close friends and, in some families, small children, and using it wrongly is the mistake with the sharpest edge. When in doubt, use "aap". Nobody has ever been offended by too much respect. There is more on this in learning Hindi for your partner's Indian family.

What to say back

Being greeted is half the exchange. Here is the other half.

Then return it. "Aap sunaiye" (you tell me, respectful) or "tum batao" (you tell me, casual). Handing the question back is not politeness theatre; it is the actual structure of the conversation, and skipping it is the thing that makes a learner's Hindi feel like a form being filled in.

Aur batao: the greeting that is really an invitation

If you take one phrase from this post into your next family visit, make it this one.

"Aur batao?" literally means "and tell". "Aur sunao?" means "and let me hear". Both translate badly and function beautifully. They mean: the formalities are done, now say something real. It is what an uncle says after the third handshake, what a cousin says when they sit down next to you, and what fills the small silence that would otherwise become awkward.

The reason it is so useful to a learner is that it costs two words and buys you thirty seconds of listening. You ask it, and the other person talks. You are now in a conversation you did not have to construct, and you can spend that time catching vocabulary instead of manufacturing sentences.

Phone greetings, which are their own small world

Answering the phone in Hindi does not start with "namaste". It starts with "hello", pronounced closer to "hah-lo", and then immediately splits:

• "Haan, boliye" (yes, speak) — respectful, to someone senior or unknown.
• "Haan bhai" (yes, brother) — to a male friend. "Haan yaar" works for anyone close.
• "Kaun?" (who?) — blunt, common, not rude in context.
• "Kahan ho?" (where are you?) — statistically the second sentence of most Indian phone calls, and I stand by that.

Ending a call: "achha, rakhta hoon" (okay, I'll hang up, said by a man) or "achha, rakhti hoon" (said by a woman). Here the ending follows your own gender, because you are the one doing the hanging up. This is the mirror image of the "kaise ho" rule and it catches people out constantly.

Goodbyes

"Alvida" is the one to be careful with. It carries a sense of permanence, the goodbye at the end of a story rather than the end of an evening. Saying it as you leave a family lunch will get you a laugh and possibly a follow-up question about whether everything is all right.

Getting the sounds right

Two sounds in these greetings routinely give English speakers trouble, and both are fixable.

The first is the "t" in "namaste". It is not the English "t" made at the ridge behind your teeth. It is softer and made with the tongue against the back of the upper teeth, closer to the "t" in a French or Spanish word. English speakers who use the hard English "t" produce a version that is understood immediately and still marked as foreign.

The second is the "aa" in "namaskar" and "aur batao", which is long, as in "father", not the short vowel in "cat". Shortening it is the single most common flattening of Hindi vowels.

Neither of these is something you can fix by reading about it, which is the honest limitation of a blog post. You fix them by saying the word out loud, hearing what came out, and adjusting. That feedback loop is exactly what our app does: you say the phrase, and Ellie scores it sound by sound and tells you which specific one was off and how to move your mouth differently. It is free to start, on iOS and Android. If a tutor or an audio course suits you better, that is a perfectly good route too. The thing that matters is that something is listening back.

A greeting sequence you can actually use

Put together, a first meeting with your partner's older relative runs roughly like this:

1. "Namaste." Palms together, small nod.
2. "Kaise hain aap?" to a man, "Kaisi hain aap?" to a woman.
3. They answer, and ask you back. Say "main theek hoon, dhanyavad" (I'm fine, thank you).
4. "Aur batao?" and then listen.

Four moves, maybe fifteen seconds, and you have done the entire ceremonial part of the encounter correctly. What happens after that is just being a person in a room, which you already know how to do. For the wider set of phrases that carry the rest of the evening, the 100 most common Hindi phrases list is the place to go next, and how to introduce yourself in Hindi covers the sentences that follow the greeting.

FAQ

What is the most common Hindi greeting?

"Namaste" is the most widely recognised and works in every setting, with anyone, as both hello and goodbye. In casual daily use among peers, though, people more often open with a question like "kya haal hai?" (what's up) or "aur batao?" (so, tell me) rather than a greeting word.

How do you say good morning in Hindi?

The textbook phrase is "subh prabhat", but it is rarely used in ordinary conversation. Most Hindi speakers simply say "good morning" in English. The same is true of good night, where "shubh ratri" exists but "good night" is what you will hear.

Is namaste formal or informal?

Namaste is neutral, which is why it is so useful. It is respectful enough for an elder or a stranger and relaxed enough for a shopkeeper. "Namaskar" is the more formal step up, and "pranam" is the version reserved for elders.

How do you say how are you in Hindi?

"Kaise ho?" to a man and "kaisi ho?" to a woman, casually. Respectfully, "kaise hain aap?" or "kaisi hain aap?". The ending changes with the gender of the person you are addressing, not your own. "Kya haal hai?" means the same thing and has no gender ending, which makes it the safest option while you are learning.

What is the reply to namaste?

"Namaste." The greeting is its own answer, the same way "hello" is. If it came with palms pressed together, mirror that too.

Should I say namaste or the greeting my partner's family uses?

Mirror whatever you are given. If the household greets with "sat sri akal", "adaab" or "Ram Ram", saying it back is the natural, welcome response, and it is not a claim about your own background. "Namaste" remains correct everywhere if you would rather not choose.

— Akhil Madan, founder of Keeda Studios. My wife's most-used Hindi phrase is not namaste. It is "aur batao", and she deploys it on my relatives with a fluency that I find slightly unnerving.