Greetings and Farewells

Greetings are the first thing you say and the first thing that gives you away as a careful speaker or a tourist. Russian sorts them sharply by register — formal вы vs informal ты — and many farewells turn out to be frozen genitives, fossil fragments of a fuller phrase "I wish you…". This page lays out the everyday inventory by function, flags the register of each, and explains the grammar hiding inside the set phrases, so you don't just memorise opaque chunks but understand why they take the shape they do.

Saying hello

The central choice is formal vs informal. Здра́вствуйте is the all-purpose polite greeting — you use it with strangers, elders, officials, anyone you'd address as вы, and any group. Its singular informal partner Здра́вствуй is for one person you're on ты terms with. Приве́т is the casual "hi," for friends, family, and peers.

Time-of-day greetings

These work at any register and are a graceful, neutral way to greet without choosing ты/вы. They are nominative noun phrases ("a good morning"), not verbs:

Note the gender agreement: до́брое у́тро (neuter у́тро), до́брый день / до́брый ве́чер (masculine день, ве́чер). The adjective "good" must match the noun, which is why the ending changes.

Asking "how are you?"

The phrasing tracks register. Как дела́? (literally "how are [your] affairs?") is the neutral, near-universal version. Как ты? is warm and informal; Как вы? is its polite counterpart. There's also the chummy Как жизнь? ("how's life?").

The standard replies, from best to worst, are worth having ready:

Saying goodbye

До свида́ния is the formal, all-purpose goodbye — literally "until [the next] meeting" (до + genitive свида́ния). Пока́ is the casual "bye," strictly for ты relationships. The "until…" family lets you specify when you'll meet again:

The genitive in wish-farewells

Here is the key grammatical insight. A whole class of farewells are bare genitives — Споко́йной но́чи, Всего́ до́брого, Счастли́вого пути́ — and they look like sentence fragments because they are. Each is the object of an unspoken жела́ю ("I wish [you]"), and the verb жела́ть governs the genitive. So Споко́йной но́чи is "[I wish you] of a peaceful night."

How this differs from English

English farewells are mostly verbal or interjectional — "goodbye," "see you," "take care" — and carry no case marking at all. Russian's wish-farewells are noun phrases in a specific case, and getting the case wrong (saying the nominative Споко́йная ночь instead of the genitive Споко́йной но́чи) signals you've memorised the words without the grammar. Russian also draws the ты/вы line through every greeting, where English has only one "you," so each hello forces a relationship decision English speakers aren't used to making. Finally, До свида́ния packs a future meeting into the goodbye itself ("until we meet"), an optimism English only matches with the casual "see you."

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Hello: Здра́вствуйте (formal/plural, silent first в) / Здра́вствуй (informal sg) / Приве́т (casual) / time-of-day До́брое у́тро, До́брый день, До́брый ве́чер (any register).
• Goodbye: До свида́ния (formal, "until the meeting") / Пока́ (casual) / До за́втра, До встре́чи, Уви́димся (specify when).
• "How are you?" Как дела́? (neutral) / Как ты? (informal) / Как вы? (formal); reply short and positive: Норма́льно, Хорошо́, Непло́хо.
• Wish-farewells are frozen genitives governed by an implied жела́ю: Споко́йной но́чи, Всего́ до́брого, Счастли́вого пути́, Уда́чи — never the nominative.
• Every greeting forces a ты/вы register choice English doesn't have; match it to the relationship.