Does Your English Sound Boring? Use These Expressions

A: Good morning! How are you?

B: I’m fine, thank you. And you?

A: I’m fine too, thank you.

The short conversation above is often taught by our English teachers at Indonesian school. However, the communication in actual situations often requires us to use more than those expressions.

Greeting expressions other than ‘how are you?’ in everyday communication.

• How is it going?
• How are you doing?
• What’s up? / What’s new? (usually responded with nothing/not much)
• How’s life?
• How was your day? (particularly used at the end of the day)

Note:

The most basic response is ‘good’ or ‘not bad’. If you need to start a small talk, you can answer the greeting by talking about something and then say, ‘how about you?.’

To start a conversation with a friend or relative you haven’t seen in a long time, use the following expressions.

• It’s good/nice to see you.
• It’s been a while/long time no see. How have you been?

There are phrases other than ‘goodbye’ and ‘see you later’ that you can use more casually to end the conversation.

• (I’ll) catch you later.
• (I’ll) talk to you later.
• Gotta go now/gotta get going.
• Have a good/nice day.
• Have a good one.
• Take care.
• Good night. (specifically used for the night)

Some alternatives to express ‘good luck’ are as follows.

• Good luck with …! (we can respond with ‘thank you,’ or ‘I’m gonna need it.’)
• Best of luck!
• Break a leg!
• You can do it/you’ll do great!
• Go get ‘em!
• Fingers crossed!

We often use ‘thank you’ as magic words to express our gratitude. Besides, to make the phrase more meaningful, add the following alternatives.

• Couldn’t have done it without you.
• It means a lot (to me).
• You made this easy.
• I can’t thank you enough.
• That’s very kind of you.

Responding to thank you with ‘you’re welcome’ feels too basic and boring. Use the following expressions as variations.

• My pleasure.
• No problem.
• No worries.
• Don’t mention it.
• Sure/sure thing.

So these are alternative expressions commonly used in everyday life that will make you sound more natural.