Dialogue: Good Morning / Good Evening

The first words Russians say to each other every day are greetings tied to the time of day, and they hide a small grammar lesson: each is an adjective agreeing with a noun (До́брое у́тро, literally "good morning"), frozen into a fixed wish. The natural follow-up question — Как спа́лось? "how did you sleep?" — is a perfect first example of an impersonal sentence with no subject at all, a structure that has no equivalent in English. Here is a tiny morning exchange between two people who live together or are staying in the same place; read it whole, then line by line.

The dialogue

Line by line

— До́брое у́тро!

This is one fixed wish, but it pays to see its parts. до́брое is the adjective до́брый ("good, kind") in its neuter form, because у́тро ("morning") is a neuter noun. Adjective and noun must agree in gender, and до́брое у́тро is neuter–neuter. So the greeting is literally "[a] good morning" — a wish, not a statement.

A common question: why does До́брое у́тро look like an accusative? Because it is historically a frozen accusative — "[I wish you] a good morning", with the wish-verb dropped. But here neuter nominative and accusative are identical (both до́брое у́тро), so you never have to choose; just learn it as a unit. The same goes for the masculine ones below, where the difference does show.

— До́брое у́тро! Как спа́лось?

The greeting is returned identically, then the real grammar gem: Как спа́лось? — "How did you sleep?" Word for word it is closer to "How did-it-sleep-itself?", and there is no subject and no "you" in the sentence at all:

• спа́лось is спать ("to sleep") in the past tense, neuter, with the reflexive -сь added: спа́ло + сь. The neuter ending -о is the impersonal default — there is no он/она́ doing the sleeping; the verb just sits in the "no-subject" neuter form.
• The person who slept is understood from context, or marked by an optional dative: the full form is Как тебе́ спа́лось? / Как вам спа́лось? ("how did it sleep to you?"). In casual speech the dative is usually dropped, leaving the bare Как спа́лось?
• The construction conveys not just whether you slept but how the sleeping went for you — the -ся adds the nuance "how was the experience of sleeping". It is warmer and more idiomatic than the plain Как ты спал? ("Did you sleep [okay]?").

— Спаси́бо, хорошо́. А тебе́?

The reply is heavily elliptical, which is exactly how Russians answer. Спаси́бо ("thank you") acknowledges the asking; хорошо́ ("well, good") is the answer — and it is an adverb, not an adjective, because it describes how the sleeping went, matching the verbal спа́лось. The full thought "I slept well" collapses to a single хорошо́; restating Я спал хорошо́ would sound oddly heavy here.

А тебе́? bounces the question back: "And you?" Notice it is тебе́, the dative of ты, not the nominative ты — because it echoes the dropped dative of Как тебе́ спа́лось? ("how did it sleep to you?"). Keeping the case of the original question is a small, very natural touch. To a person you address as вы, this would be А вам?

— То́же хорошо́.

Pure ellipsis again: То́же хорошо́ = "[I slept] well too." то́же means "also, too"; хорошо́ repeats the adverb. No verb, no subject — both are recoverable from the exchange. Two words carry a full reply, which is the rhythm of real spoken Russian: say only what is new.

— До́брый ве́чер! Как прошёл день?

A second, evening exchange, to show the masculine greetings. До́брый ве́чер ("good evening") is masculine: до́брый (masc -ый) + ве́чер (masc noun). Here the masculine -ый is visibly different from neuter -ое, so the agreement is doing real work.

Как прошёл день? ("How did the day go?" = "How was your day?") uses прошёл, the past tense of пройти́ ("to pass, go by"), masculine to agree with день ("day", masculine). Unlike Как спа́лось?, this one has a real subject — день — so the verb agrees with it normally. It is a friendly, idiomatic way to ask about someone's day.

— До́брый ве́чер! Норма́льно, немно́го уста́л.

Returned greeting, then a relaxed answer. Норма́льно ("fine, okay") is the everyday neutral reply — literally "normally". немно́го уста́л = "[I'm] a bit tired": немно́го ("a little"), уста́л (past tense of уста́ть "to get tired", masculine, said by a male speaker; a woman would say уста́ла). Russian expresses "I'm tired" with this past-tense verb (уста́л = "I got tired" → "I am tired"), one of the first verbs where past form maps onto an English present state.

Register: ты or вы?

These greetings themselves are register-neutral — До́брое у́тро / День / Ве́чер work for everyone, friend or stranger, boss or child. What carries the register is the address pronoun in the follow-ups:

• With friends, family, children → ты: Как тебе́ спа́лось? / А тебе́? — and the casual Как прошёл день?
• With strangers, elders, in service or work settings → вы: Как вам спа́лось? / А вам?

Because the dialogue above is between people on familiar terms (same household, a morning greeting), it uses ты (тебе́). Swap every тебе́ → вам to make it polite. The greetings stay the same; only the pronoun moves. For when to switch, see ты and вы pragmatics.

Vocabulary gloss

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Time-of-day greetings are adjective + noun agreeing in gender: До́брое у́тро (neuter), До́брый день / ве́чер (masculine), До́брая ночь (feminine, parting).
• They are frozen wishes — neuter До́брое у́тро coincides with the accusative; Споко́йной но́чи is genitive. Learn each as a unit.
• Как спа́лось? is a subjectless impersonal: neuter past + -ся, with the experiencer in the dative (тебе́ / вам), often dropped.
• Replies are heavily elliptical — Спаси́бо, хорошо́ / То́же хорошо́ — using the adverb хорошо́ and no verb.
• The greetings are register-neutral; the register lives in ты vs вы (тебе́ ↔ вам). The bounce-back keeps the question's case.