Hello, good-bye, and thank you.

[Monique]

If you answer the phone in germany you say your name first and then the other person says 'hello this is...' So it would be (for me):
(I pick up the phone): The Bob
Other person: Hallo. Dude hier.
And the conversation starts.

Strange for me but normal in other countries (I assume).

The Bob (2004 ©)

Same here, you pick up with:
"This is *name*" and the other follows with
"This is *name*"
and the conversation starts :) It would be very inpolite to not say your name when picking up :)

 

[Moonbear]

That sounds like business etiquette here, you answer the phone, "Hello, *name* *company*" Then the other person identifies themself and why they are calling to start the conversation. When answering the phone at home, you don't identify yourself until the caller identifies themself, just say "hello." That's probably because we have annoying telemarketers who should be kept in the dark about who they are speaking to since it's clearly rude to call someone's house about business when you don't know them and they haven't asked for you to call them there.

 

[Monique]

Yeah, you have to state your name every time you answer the phone and if you don't they'll ask who's speaking before saying their own name. It's more polite and courteous that way.

Urghm.. when I worked in a lab in the US I used to pick up the phone like that.. to the inspiration of my boss.. not a good thing , he demanded that any time he picked up the phone stating his name, the person on the other side also stated their name before asking to be connected to someone else in the lab. You'd think that is a simple demand to be met.. not quite.. he'd spend minutes arguing before handing over the phone and I had to train my friends that before asking for me when calling they should first quickly say their own name if they didn't want to be torn to threads

 

[The Bob]

Yeah, you have to state your name every time you answer the phone and if you don't they'll ask who's speaking before saying their own name. It's more polite and courteous that way.

Urghm.. when I worked in a lab in the US I used to pick up the phone like that.. to the inspiration of my boss.. not a good thing , he demanded that any time he picked up the phone stating his name, the person on the other side also stated their name before asking to be connected to someone else in the lab. You'd think that is a simple demand to be met.. not quite.. he'd spend minutes arguing before handing over the phone and I had to train my friends that before asking for me when calling they should first quickly say their own name if they didn't want to be torn to threads

Hehe. Well in England that is just funny and my german teacher (the legend he is) spend 10 minutes going round the class and doing this. The results were hilarious. Not to insult your country but it was funny (as we are not used to it).

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[plover]

Понятно?

Russian: (Cyrillic / transliteration / pronunciation / [translation])

Hello -

Привет / privyet / pree-vyet
Здравствуйте / zdravstvuytye / zdrast-voy-tyeh
​

Good bye -

До свидания / do svidaniya / duh svee-dan-ya / until (another) meeting
Пока / poka / puh-ka / for now
​

Thank you -

Спасибо / spasibo / spa-see-buh
​

Answering the phone, Russians will use -

Алло / allo
Слушаю / slushayu / sloo-sha-yoo / I'm listening​

 

[The Bob]

Russian: (Cyrillic / transliteration / pronunciation / [translation])

Hello -

Привет / privyet / pree-vyet
Здравствуйте / zdravstvuytye / zdrast-voy-tyeh
​

Good bye -

До свидания / do svidaniya / duh svee-dan-ya / until (another) meeting
Пока / poka / puh-ka / for now
​

Thank you -

Спасибо / spasibo / spa-see-buh
​

Answering the phone, Russians will use -

Алло / allo
Слушаю / slushayu / sloo-sha-yoo / I'm listening​

Oh yer. My favourite language.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[Janus]

Klingon:

nuqneH - Hello
qapla' - Good-bye
qatlho' - Thank you

 

[kuengb]

Hello = Hallo, Große Gott (in southern germany), Gutentag, Guten Abend(evening)

The Bob (2004 ©)

Wow, you even managed to type the double-s, not even I know how to do this with my keyboard

But it's rather "Grüss' Gott" than the other, except you're some religious freak...

 

[plover]

Wow, you even managed to type the double-s, not even I know how to do this with my keyboard

You can insert a ß into a post with the sequence ß

For pretty much any character there is some sequence &#xxx; where xxx is a number. I think the number corresponds to the Unicode encoding of the character.

E.g. א is א (the character should be a Hebrew aleph)

I don't know what determines whether people's browsers will show other alphabets effectively though.

You could also install a German keyboard driver and poke at it until you find the right key. (That's how I figured out how to type in Russian.)

Most systems have some kind "Character map" utility that you can cut and paste from too.

 

[The Bob]

Wow, you even managed to type the double-s, not even I know how to do this with my keyboard

But it's rather "Grüss' Gott" than the other, except you're some religious freak...

The ß is done by holding ALT and typing 0223 on your numberpad.

I don't get your point about the Grüß Gott. Is that what it should be because the one I wrote was what I have been taught. What does it have to do with me being a christian? And are you german then?

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[kuengb]

No big deal, it's just that "große(r) Gott" means "great god", and even in catholic southern Germany people may wonder about you if you tell them all the time how good god is... :)
Grüssen=to greet
Gross=great, big

 

[The Bob]

No big deal, it's just that "große(r) Gott" means "great god", and even in catholic southern Germany people may wonder about you if you tell them all the time how good god is... :)
Grüssen=to greet
Gross=great, big

Oh rite I get it. Sorry mate.

The Bob (2004 ©)

 

[devious_]

4.) Arabic: Selam
A'asalaama
Shukran

Just a minor correction... In Arabic, good-bye is Ma'asalama, not A'asalamaa. Ma'asalama means "(depart) with well-being".

Here are a couple of variations to the word:
Wada'an (good-bye)
Elal Liqa' (until we meat again... or simply 'later')

 

[ElectroPhysics]

In Urdu...
Hello: Keya hall hey
Goodbye:Khuda Hafiz
ThankYou:Shukria

 

[balkan]

more mandarin:
Goodbye as in See you later: YìíHòu Jiàn (Yi is a falling then rising tone, hou and jian is a falling tone)
Goodbye as in Godspeed or travel carefully: Màn Zòóu
Good evening: Wàánsháng hàáo (shang is rising)
Good morning: ZàáoChén hàáo
and if you're thanking someone for a service they're supposed to be doing, just say: hàáo

lemme just check that unicode crap for pinyin... that ^ is annoying...

edit: pinyin code lies in &£0300 and up, but how do i display it? alt doesn't work, maybe since it won't accept a starting 0 or something... ?

 

[plus]

Southern Californian:
Hello: Hey dude
goodbye: Later dude
Thanks: Thanks dude

South Californian:

Hola
Adios
gracias

 

[jimmy p]

Turkish: Machamba is hello.. and I did know the others...I'll get back to you on that

 

[Mistress Lilith]

Turkish-
hello- merhaba
goodbye- hoscakal (hosh-cha-kal)
thankyou- tesekkur ederim (te-she-koor-- e-deh-rim)

this is pretty formal though i guess, we don't say that at home, we've just adopted to the "hello" "bye" and "thanks"

 

[jimmy p]

lol, where we went they had this crazy accent that made it sound different to what the phrasebook said. I remember what Thank you is now, but I didnt know goodbye obviously.