Basic greetings: Common greetings

🇨🇳 [你好吗？] is easy to learn, but in daily life people in China often use it less than English speakers use "How are you?" With friends or coworkers, people more often greet each other with [你好] or ask something more specific.

💬 [叫] in [你叫什么名字？] literally means "be called," so Chinese says something like "you are called what name?" The same pattern works in [我叫李明] for "I'm called Li Ming."

💬 With [名字], Chinese often uses [叫] rather than [是]: [我叫^FIRST^] is the most natural everyday way to say your name. [我的名字是 ^FIRST^] is correct, just a bit more explicit.

💬 [认识] means "come to know / meet," so [很高兴认识你] is literally "very happy to meet you." Here [很] often just makes the sentence sound complete, not strongly "very."