I have a question!
 

Can you tell me how would you say....
if you are (b) person.

a) How are you?

b) I am good. how ARE you?

a) I am pretty good.

b) xxxxxx


Would you say other than,
"That's good" ?

i really dunno ,but i usually go with "That's good" or "great"

I'd say they're equally correct, I usually go with good but I've never stopped to think why lol


lol you don't wanna overuse a word in spoken conversation. There're infinite replies you could give there that don't involve the term "good" like... lol I was gonna say "that's good to hear" as an example xDDDD! but really, you could say just about anything.

"That's great" could be one response.

Or you could go straight into the conversation from that point.

Thank you, Suki
 

I see what you mean,thank you.

"you could say just about anything"

Yes, I think so too, because in Japanese language
I could choose any words any explanations,
because I am a native Japanese speaker so I know
what are appropriate, but
you know,
English is a foreign language for me,
so
I don't have many choice,
I don't know what are appropriate.

so in this thread, I really appreciate many of kind English native speakers like you told me what they would say, is really really interesting and helpful.

Thank you!
 

Thank you!

The reason why I asked this question was
most of the English text books in Japan (written/edited by Japanese)
show like

a) How are you?
b) I'm fine, thank you. and you?
a) I'm fine Thank you.

That's it!

then conversation just stopped!
for the beginners, they really need some
nice responce to make the conversation keep going.

so I want them to put

a) That's good. by the way...

or something like that.


thank you and have a good day!

aligato! Nathan
 

naruhodo.

can you give me some easy way to go into the conversation?

I mean,

after that how are you thing,

so... how is your XXX? (school, work,new part-time job)?
how was your weekend,holidays,party...?

if I don't know much about the person yet,
I sometimes have NO idea what to say to start the conversation.
Usually the person I was talking to, he/she would start saying or asking me something, but some people don't have a good questions to ask me, because
we don't know much about each other, then we have some awkward moment.

I was told that talking about the weather is the best way to
start the conversation, but I don't want to sound boring.

mmm communication in a foreing language is not easy!
(but interesting)

mmm, this type of question has no simple answer. It depends on not only what country you are from, but also what state, town, socio-economic background - all that stuff. Say how you are, what comes naturally won't be wrong no matter what anyone says.

Well, it all depends on how close you are to each other.

If you do know each other well, you can carry on in the "so, how was X" style.
Some variations include: "Hey, how was X", "So hey, how was X"

Maybe you have some news of your own to share:
"(Hey,) Did you hear about (Hamasaki's baby boy / the typhoon in Kobe / )"
"Guess what happened (this weekend / to John / in Australia)"

"Did you (catch the news / watch the (game/movie))?"

If you don't know much about them, you can try general "probe" questions to see what interests them. Try general topics, like celebrities, sports, etc.
Somewhat similar to the above:

- "Did you watch the Tigers game last night?"
- "I like your (hat). Where did you get it?"
- Even more generic: "Anything exciting happen on the weekend?"

As stringperson said, there are a number of ways. It varies.

mmmmmm what is exactly the difference between Australian English and British English or even American English? is it just the tone/ pronunciation or is it how the body of words are mixed together? i guess i use American English....

....& what is the proper english to use G'day or Good day???