Hola.
(Basic phrases has variations such as good morning and audio.)
But not everyone knows how to say 'how are you?'. And reply
In Spanish, like in English, there are many different ways to ask how someone is. From the formal 'How are you?' to the informal 'How are things'.
The usage is similar to the English, you meet someone and say 'hi, how are you'.
| How are you (formal)? | ¿Cómo está? |
| How are you? | ¿Cómo estás? |
| How are you? | ¿Qué tal? |
| How are things? | ¿Cómo va la cosa? |
¿Cómo va la cosa? literally means 'how goes the thing'.
¿Cómo está? versus ¿Cómo estás?. Está when referring to people is the formal version of estar (to be) and crops up in numerous phrases on this site.
| very well | muy bien |
| fine | bien |
| so, so | regular |
| not well | fatal |
| I'm fed up | estoy harto |
Fatal it the tricky word out of this lot as we don't really have a direct translation, but the gist is that things aren't good whenever fatal is used.
So :
Estoy fatal. I'm really not well. Estoy fatal con mi novio. It's going badly with my boyfriend.