Quote:
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Originally Posted by tianshan In China's English textbooks, the greetings include:
Hi, Hello, How are you. And the reply for How are you is
something like "I am fine, thank you, and you?"
But in Canada/USA, I heard more often "how are you doing?"
and its reply is mostly "good." Another greeting "How's it going?"
seems getting more and more into my ears.
My questions: Any difference between "How are you doing and
How's it going?" What are the usual replies for the latter?
The British say differrent greetings than the above or the same?
Many thanks! |
This has always been a pet hate of mine here in China. Regardless of who I speak to, the answer will *always* be "I'm fine thank you, and you?" even if that person is unwell, tired, or whatever.
I find that if I walk into a class and ask "how's it going?", the students will sit there puzzled! So that gives me something to do in the classroom; teach them various other greetings used in an English conversation.
Rote learning has often caused problems for students, in that they are unable to deviate from a set pattern; leading to frustating conversations; here's an example:
If
I ask first "How are you?" they will reply "I'm fine thank you, and you?" (all 60 students replying in synch with each other).
If
they ask me first "How are you?" and I then reply "I'm fine thank you, how are you?", they will answer back: "I'm fine thank you,
and you?"
They assume that because my answer included the line "how are you?" they
must give the formatted response; even though they have already answered that question!
On another note, I also like to ask my class to give me another way of saying "so-so". It keeps them thinking for ages; they can't think of one (except "just so-so")!
Shane