Hello ... Good morning ... Good afternoon ... Good evening ...

How are you?

I'm fine, how about you?

I'm fine, too.

In English we use ALL these words to GREET each other.

It's a very interesting greeting.

Some people question

why ask ‘How are you?’

if we don't really want to know

how the person feels.

Well let's have a look at that question:

The ‘I’m fine’ response gives a lot of information.

It can be upbeat, in which case the person is feeling good.

It could be hesitant, then you know there might be something wrong.

At this point in the conversation,

if you have a close relationship with the person,

you can now ask more questions to show interest.

You can then ask a second level question:

‘What's happening? You sound excited!’

Or

‘You don’t sound so fine. What’s wrong?’

If you don't have a close relationship,

you're going to understand that maybe you need to be more compassionate,

but you’re not necessarily going to ask second level questions.

In English we use this greeting to gauge how the person is feeling.

Their response determines the second level questions,

depending on our relationship.

Hope that's given you more of an understanding into the English greeting:)