
I’ve had so many conversations with people learning English who assume that ‘how are you’ is a genuine question rather than just an empty greeting. In Mandarin ‘ni hao’ literally translates as ‘ you good’ but if you are greeting a friend and you actually want to know if they are good, you add the question word ‘ma’ at the end. Such a clear and practical language, well done Mandarin. Now we just need a way in English to signal whether we actually care, ‘how are you?’


