Buenos días, ¿cómo está?

Buenos días is the most standard and widely understood morning greeting across the Spanish-speaking world.

A few helpful points:

• Buenos días is a fixed expression, even though English uses the singular good morning.
• Spanish often uses plural forms in greetings:
  • buenos días
  • buenas tardes
  • buenas noches
• In some Latin American regions, especially parts of the Southern Cone, you may also hear buen día, but buenos días is the safest choice for learners.

So if you want one version that works almost everywhere, use buenos días.

Está is the formal form, used with usted.

• ¿Cómo está? = formal / polite
• ¿Cómo estás? = informal, used with tú

This means the sentence is addressing someone politely, such as:

• a stranger
• an older person
• a customer
• a teacher
• someone in a professional setting

In much of Latin America, using the formal form is very common in polite conversation.

The subject pronoun is usually omitted in Spanish because the verb already tells you who the subject is.

So:

• ¿Cómo está? is complete and natural.
• ¿Cómo está usted? is also correct, but it sounds a little more explicit or emphatic.

Spanish often drops subject pronouns unless they are needed for:

• emphasis
• contrast
• clarity

So in normal speech, ¿cómo está? is exactly what you would expect.

Cómo has an accent because it is being used in a question.

A useful rule:

• cómo with an accent = how in a question or exclamation
• como without an accent = other uses, such as like or as

Examples:

• ¿Cómo está?
• ¿Cómo se llama?

So the accent helps show that this is an interrogative word.

Está has an accent because the stressed syllable falls on the last syllable: es-TÁ.

The accent mark is part of the correct spelling of this verb form.

It also helps distinguish it from esta, which can be a demonstrative word such as this in forms like esta casa.

So:

• está = verb form of estar
• esta = demonstrative adjective

Spanish uses two question marks for direct questions:

• ¿ at the beginning
• ? at the end

So the correct punctuation is:

¿Cómo está?

This is standard Spanish spelling and punctuation. It tells the reader from the start that a question is coming.

If the whole sentence is not a question, only the question part gets the question marks. That is why:

Buenos días, ¿cómo está?

has regular punctuation for the greeting and question marks only around the question.

The comma separates the greeting from the question that follows.

So this is very natural:

Buenos días, ¿cómo está?

It works like English punctuation in sentences such as:

• Good morning, how are you?

In Spanish, punctuation can sometimes vary a little in informal writing, but with a greeting followed by another clause, the comma is standard and clear.

A simple Latin American approximation is:

BWEH-nos DEE-as, KOH-moh es-TAH

A few details:

• bue in buenos sounds roughly like bwe
• días has the stress on dí
• cómo has the stress on có
• está has the stress on the last syllable, tá

A more natural connected pronunciation may sound like:

BWEH-noz DEE-as, KOH-moh es-TA

In many Latin American accents:

• s is clearly pronounced
• d between vowels can sound softer
• vowels stay pure and short compared with English

Use Buenos días, ¿cómo está? in the morning when you want to sound polite or respectful.

Common situations:

• speaking to a stranger
• greeting a customer or client
• talking to an older person
• entering a shop or office
• speaking in a professional context

It is especially useful if you are not sure whether to be formal or informal. In that case, this sentence is a safe choice.

For other times of day, you would usually switch the greeting:

• Buenas tardes, ¿cómo está?
• Buenas noches, ¿cómo está?

Yes. Hola, ¿cómo está? is correct and natural.

The difference is tone:

• Buenos días adds a time-of-day greeting and often feels a bit more polished or courteous.
• Hola is more general and can feel slightly less formal, though it can still be polite.

You can also combine them:

• Hola, buenos días. ¿Cómo está?
• Buenos días, ¿cómo está usted?

All of these are possible, depending on the situation.

Common polite answers include:

• Bien, gracias.
• Muy bien, gracias.
• Bien, ¿y usted?
• Muy bien, ¿y usted?

If the conversation is formal, replying with ¿y usted? matches the same polite level.

Examples:

• Buenos días, ¿cómo está?
• Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y usted?

That is a very common exchange in Latin America.

No. In this kind of greeting, Spanish uses estar, not ser.

So the normal forms are:

• ¿Cómo está?
• ¿Cómo estás?

Using ser here would sound wrong because Spanish uses estar for someone’s current state or condition in greetings like How are you?

It is absolutely common and natural, especially in polite situations.

It may sound a little formal, but not unnatural. In fact, that is exactly the point: it is a respectful morning greeting.

In everyday Latin American speech, you might also hear shorter or more casual versions such as:

• Buenos días
• ¿Cómo está?
• ¿Qué tal?
• ¿Cómo le va? in some places

But Buenos días, ¿cómo está? is a solid, natural sentence that learners can use with confidence.