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Lesson 1

German Greetings and Farewells

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Hallo! Willkommen zu deiner ersten Deutschstunde.

This course is designed to help you create a fun activity for your future students. To do that, you'll first experience the lesson yourself, pretending to be an 11-year-old student just starting to learn German.

In this first lesson, we will focus on the very first thing you do when you meet someone: saying hello and goodbye. By the end of our time today, you will be able to recognize the most common German greetings and farewells and understand when to use them. This is the first step on our journey to introducing ourselves in German.

Let's begin!

The Basic German Greetings and Farewells

Just like in English, German has several ways to say hello and goodbye. Some are used in the morning, others in the evening, and some can be used anytime.

Here are the most important phrases to know. Don't worry about perfecting the pronunciation right now; the goal is to start recognizing them.

German Phrase English Meaning When to Use It
Hallo Hello A general, friendly greeting for any time of day.
Guten Morgen Good morning In the morning, until about noon.
Guten Tag Good day / Hello The most common formal greeting, from noon until early evening.
Guten Abend Good evening In the evening, from about 6 PM onwards.
Gute Nacht Good night Right before going to bed.
Tschüss Bye A general, friendly way to say goodbye.
Auf Wiedersehen Goodbye A more formal way to say goodbye.
Bis bald See you soon An informal way to say you'll see someone again soon.

When Do You Say What?

Now let's see if you can connect these phrases to different situations. Look at the picture below. It shows people in different settings and at different times of the day. Can you guess which German phrase from our list would fit each picture?

German Greetings Matching Worksheet
A worksheet showing various scenes. The task is to match each scene with the correct German greeting or farewell from a list.

Take a moment to think about your answers before you continue.

...

Here are the correct matches:

  1. Waving hello to a friend: hallo!
  2. Waking up with the sun rising: guten Morgen!
  3. Meeting someone during the daytime: guten Tag!
  4. Meeting someone in the evening, with the sun setting: guten Abend!
  5. Waving goodbye: auf Wiedersehen! or Tschüss!
  6. Going to bed, with the moon in the sky: Gute Nacht!

This visual exercise is a great way to help your own students remember vocabulary because it connects the words to a specific context or image.

Greetings vs. Farewells

Some of the phrases we learned are for saying "hello" (Begrüßen), and others are for saying "goodbye" (Verabschieden). Let's sort them out. This will help you know whether a conversation is just beginning or if it's ending.

Can you place each phrase from our list into the correct category?

Category 1: Begrüßen (Saying Hello)
Category 2: Verabschieden (Saying Goodbye)

Here's the list of phrases again:

  • Guten Abend
  • Gute Nacht
  • Tschüss
  • Hallo
  • Guten Morgen
  • Bis bald
  • Auf Wiedersehen
  • Guten Tag

Solution:

  • Begrüßen (Saying Hello):

    • Hallo
    • Guten Morgen
    • Guten Tag
    • Guten Abend

  • Verabschieden (Saying Goodbye):

    • Tschüss
    • Auf Wiedersehen
    • Gute Nacht
    • Bis bald

Notice that Gute Nacht is used when leaving or going to bed, so it's considered a farewell, not a greeting.

A Quick Teacher's Note: Formal vs. Informal

As you prepare to teach this, it's important to understand a key cultural point in German: the difference between formal and informal language.

  • Informal: You use Hallo and Tschüss with friends, family, and people your own age.
  • Formal: You use Guten Tag and Auf Wiedersehen with adults you don't know well, like teachers, shopkeepers, or your parents' friends. It's a sign of respect.

For your 11-year-old students, you can explain it simply: "Use Guten Tag with teachers and Hallo with your friends." This is a fundamental concept in German that we will build on in future lessons. The resource below, intended for teachers, has some great ideas for activities and cultural notes you might find useful.

[PDF] DEUTSCH MIT FELIX UND FRANZI - Goethe-Institut

For some extra teaching ideas, you can review this lesson plan from the Goethe-Institut. It's designed for young learners and uses characters and songs to teach greetings.

Skim through 'Chapter 1: Hello!' to see how greetings are introduced with a story. Pay attention to the vocabulary list under 'The words needed' and the cultural note about shaking hands. You don't need to read the whole document, just this first chapter.

Conclusion

Super! You've just completed your first step into the German language.

In this lesson, we focused on recognizing greetings and farewells. Here are the key takeaways:

  • You learned to recognize common German greetings like Hallo, Guten Morgen, Guten Tag, and Guten Abend.
  • You can now spot common farewells like Tschüss, Auf Wiedersehen, and Gute Nacht.
  • You understand that different greetings are used at different times of the day.
  • You learned the basic difference between informal greetings (like Hallo) and formal ones (like Guten Tag).

In our next lesson, we will build on this foundation. You will learn to understand simple sentences where people introduce themselves, telling you their name, age, where they live, and where they come from. Bis bald