Greetings & Introductions — greet() / introduce()

The handshake protocol — opening a Chinese conversation

Every conversation starts with a handshake. In Chinese it's a short, nearly scripted exchange: a greeting, a name swap, a pleasantry, and you're in. Memorize the five or six canonical openings and you'll be ready for ninety percent of first meetings — including the ones where someone answers the phone, or where your boss introduces you to a vendor, or where a shopkeeper wants to know where you're from.

The rest is edge cases: formality levels, regional greetings, and the one northern Chinese pleasantry that literally translates to "Have you eaten?" and means absolutely nothing about food.

// The handshake, as an API surface.
interface Greeting {
    greet(context: TimeOfDay | PhoneCall | Informal): string;
    introduce(name: string, info?: Info): void;
    askName(formality: "casual" | "polite"): string;
    farewell(when?: TimeHorizon): string;
}

1. greet(context)

One function, several overloads. Which one you call depends on time of day, medium, and how well you know the other person.

2. introduce(name, info?)

Three equivalent patterns for giving your name. They differ by formality and by whether you want to say anything beyond the name itself.

The follow-up line — what comes right after the name — is almost always one of these:

3. askName(formality)

4. farewell(when?)

5. Sample dialogs

6. Edge cases

您 vs 你 — picking the right pronoun

您 (nín) is 你 + 心 (heart) — you, with a heart underneath. It's the respectful "you." Use it when:

• Talking to someone clearly older than you
• Talking to a customer, boss, or teacher
• Starting a formal business conversation
• In written communication when you don't know the audience

Use 你 (nǐ) in almost every other situation. Over-using 您 between peers sounds cold; under-using it with elders sounds rude. When in doubt, start with 您 and drop to 你 once they relax.

The "have you eaten?" greeting

In northern China especially, you may hear 你吃了吗？ (nǐ chī le ma? — "have you eaten?") used as a greeting around mealtimes. This is not an invitation to dinner. It's closer to "how are you?" — a ritualized check-in from an era when food security was genuinely uncertain.

Respond with 吃了 (chī le, "I have") or 还没 (hái méi, "not yet") — don't start describing your breakfast.

Titles after the surname

When addressing someone you don't know well, attach a title to their surname:

Pattern: surname + title. 王先生 (Mr. Wang), 李老师 (Teacher Li). Never: title + surname in the English order.

7. Next steps

• Next phrasebook: Personal Info — age, origin, languages
• Browse greetings vocabulary — filtered by tag
• Start a review session
• Module 0: README — the first lesson

Once you have the opening exchange on autopilot, the next conversation shape is the Q&A block: where are you from, how old are you, what do you do. That's the Personal Info phrasebook.