Basic expressions: Greeting someone and apologizing for being late

💬 Word for word this is "does me really sorry": the feeling "does" something to you, so it's mir "to me", not ich "I". echt "really" can be swapped for sehr "very" to sound a bit more formal.

🇩🇪 echt makes this casual. It's for friends and acquaintances, not for an apology to your boss.

🇩🇪 This is the natural, friendly reply when someone apologises for being late. It's like saying "no worries".

💬 For something still going on, German uses the simple present where English says "have been waiting". erst "only (so far)" is what adds the "only". Same pattern: Ich wohne erst zwei Jahre hier "I've only lived here two years".

💬 When a time phrase starts the sentence, the verb still comes second and ich moves after it: Nächstes Mal schreibe ich, not Nächstes Mal ich schreibe.

💬 wäre is the "would be" form of ist "is". It's a handy polite way to accept an offer, and works with other words too: Das wäre super "That would be great".

💬 dir is the informal "you" here. With someone you call Sie, say Wie geht es Ihnen? instead.

🇩🇪 Unlike English "How are you?", Germans may answer honestly and in detail. Only ask it if you're ready to listen.

💬 Informal version. The formal one is Und Ihnen?.

🇩🇪 Gern is a warm reply to danke, like "my pleasure". It also works as "yes, please" when accepting an offer.

💬 Komm! is how you'd say it to one person you call du. For several friends it's Kommt!, and for someone you call Sie it's Kommen Sie!.

💬 rein is the everyday short form of herein "in(to here)". Wir gehen … can also mean "let's go …": Wir gehen raus! "Let's go out!"