"well" or "good"

When somebody ask me about my current situation, for instance:
"How is your life going?"
which answer is correct
1) It is good.
2) It is well.
?

'It is good.'

'It is going well.'

:up: But the question is unlikely. It reminds me of when a Spanish speaker asked me 'Que tal la vida?' I knew what each word meant; but in Br Eng one doesn't say it that way. 'How are things' or 'How are things going' is more normal. There are many other less formal variations - but they don't* mention 'life'.

b

PS *Duh. 'How's life' is quite common.

'How was thing?' is not a question I have ever heard before.

Rover

Rover_KE said:

'How was thing?' is not a question I have ever heard before.

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If I heard it, I would know that the speaker was not a native speaker of English.

(Unless my daughter were asking me about my recent meeting with the man who ran off with my wife. But then it would be written: "How was Thing?", 'Thing' being the name we have given this gentleman.)

Odessa Dawn said:

​

I remember one day I came across "How was thing?" I don’t know if it is natural in English? Sorry for not being able to supply you context, but I am sure it was written in that way.

​

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How are things? is natural.

5jj said:

If I heard it, I would know that the speaker was not a native speaker of English.

(Unless my daughter were asking me about my recent meeting with the man who ran off with my wife. But then it would be written: "How was Thing?", 'Thing' being the name we have given this gentleman.)

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If I may cut in: why did you use 'were"?

stanislaw.masny said:

If I may cut in: why do you used 'were"?

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It's my age. I still use the subjunctive.

Many native speakers of BrE would use 'was' there.

5jj said:

It's my age. I still use the subjunctive.

Many native speakers of BrE would use 'was' there.

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Many Americans -- you know, those lawless idiots who insist on perverting the language away from the way British people (you know, the people who invented it) -- would also use the subjunctive. Language changes more slowly here.

And more quickly.

Barb_D said:

Many Americans -- you know, those lawless idiots who insist on perverting the language away from the way British people (you know, the people who invented it)

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The best thing we ever did was to cast you hooligans aside before you perverted our sacred British purity too much. You cast aside our (present) perfect ways, dishonoured or theatres, drove cars on our pavements and trains through our subways, uncovered our pants and shorts, sniggered when we knocked up our sisters, stopped smoking our fags, changed the shape of our football and made our hockey slithery. And, despite the false claims of 'progressive' America, you have clung in a luddite manner to whoms and gottens, to subjunctives and excessive commas, when we have moved boldly forwards.

If it wasn't (!) for the fact that you invented that most sublime of art forms, the western, I should refuse to acknowledge your existence.

Yippie-ki-yay!

I would blush if I was an American.

Tdol said:

How are things? is natural.

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:up: So it's conceivable that the singular was the written context OD thinks s/he remembers, if the writer was joking - and referring to the one thing (whatever that was) that was on everyone's mind. But it's certainly not idiomatic.

b

One more thing about this issue. What is correct answer for those questions:
1) How are things?
a) They are good. (adjective)
or
b) They are well (fine). (adverb)

2) How are things going?
c) They are going well. (I suspect this is only correct option, isn't it?)