El hombre dice: «Buenas noches».

In Spanish, it is very common to use the definite article before a noun when talking about a specific person or thing.
So el hombre means the man.

If you said just hombre, it would usually sound less complete on its own, unless it were being used in a special context, such as:

• as a vocative: ¡Hombre!
• in notes, labels, or very compressed style

In a normal sentence like this, el hombre is the natural form.

Yes, but these are two different words in writing:

• el = the (article)
• él = he (pronoun)

The difference is the accent mark:

• el hombre = the man
• él dice = he says

So in this sentence, el has no accent, which tells you it is the article the.

Hombre means man.

In Spain, it is pronounced approximately OM-breh:

• the h is silent
• the o is a clear short vowel
• the br is pronounced together
• the final e is sounded, not silent as in English

So do not say it like English homber or home-bray. A closer guide is OM-breh.

Because dice is the third-person singular form of the verb decir (to say / to tell).

Here, the subject is el hombre = the man, which is he in grammatical terms.
So the correct form is:

• yo digo = I say
• tú dices = you say
• él / ella / usted dice = he / she / you say

So el hombre dice means the man says.

It can correspond to both, depending on the structure.

In this sentence, dice is like English says:

• El hombre dice: ... = The man says: ...

But decir can also work like tell, especially when an indirect object is included:

• Me dice la verdad = He tells me the truth

So decir is a flexible verb, and the exact English translation depends on context.

The colon introduces the exact words the man says.

So:

• El hombre dice: = The man says:
• then comes the direct speech: Buenas noches

This works similarly to English when introducing spoken words with a colon, especially in writing or narration.

« » are called angle quotes or guillemets. They are commonly used in Spanish typography to mark direct speech or quotations.

So «Buenas noches» simply marks the exact words being spoken.

In many Spanish texts, especially modern or informal ones, you may also see regular quotation marks:

• “Buenas noches”
• or sometimes "Buenas noches"

But « » is a very standard and traditional Spanish style.

Because noches means nights, and this greeting is a fixed expression.

Spanish uses:

• buenos días = good morning
• buenas tardes = good afternoon / good evening
• buenas noches = good evening / good night

Even though English uses singular night in good night, Spanish uses the plural noun in this greeting. It is just the normal expression, so it should be learned as a whole chunk: buenas noches.

Because buenas must agree with noches.

In Spanish, adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun:

• noche is feminine
• noches is plural

So the adjective must also be feminine plural:

• buena noche would be singular
• buenas noches is plural

That is why you say buenas noches, not buenos noches.

It can mean both, depending on context.

In Spanish, buenas noches is used:

• when greeting someone at night = good evening
• when saying goodbye at night or before bed = good night

So unlike English, the same expression often covers both meanings.

No. If you are greeting someone directly, you would normally just say:

• Buenas noches.

The full sentence El hombre dice: «Buenas noches». is a narration sentence describing what someone says.
In real conversation, you usually would not say the whole sentence unless you were telling a story or reporting speech.

It is capitalized here because it appears at the beginning of the quoted speech after the colon.

So in:

• El hombre dice: «Buenas noches».

the greeting begins a quoted sentence, so Buenas starts with a capital letter.

If you wrote it by itself, it would also begin with a capital:

• Buenas noches.

In this sentence, the period is placed after the closing guillemet:

• El hombre dice: «Buenas noches».

That is standard Spanish punctuation style when the quoted words are part of a larger sentence.

So the direct speech is marked by « », and the sentence as a whole ends with the period after the closing mark.

Approximately:

• BWEH-nas NO-chehs

A few notes for Spain Spanish:

• buenas starts with a sound like bweh
• noches has ch as in English church
• the final s is pronounced clearly in most of Spain
• the vowels are pure and short, not diphthong-heavy like in English

A rough full pronunciation of the sentence could be:

• el OM-breh DEE-seh: BWEH-nas NO-chehs

Yes. Its basic meaning is man, but in real Spanish it can also be used in other ways depending on tone and context.

For example, in Spain:

• ¡Hombre! can mean something like come on!, hey!, or well!

But in this sentence, el hombre is straightforward: it simply means the man.