Good Morning In Spanish: 28 Alternative Ways To Say Buenos Días! + Audio
One of the first things that you should learn if you’re planning a visit to a Spanish-speaking country is how to greet in Spanish. This is so because when you say hello in the local language you are not only showing respect to the people and culture but also starting a communication that could lead to a life-long friendship.
Effortless Answers
The most common way to say good morning in Spanish is: Buenos días. Native speakers typically use this phrase from the early morning until around noon to start their day.
The correct pronunciation:
In this lesson, you will learn 28 different ways to say good morning in Spanish, so that you can start your days greeting everyone you might come across during the morning in an appropriate manner. There are many ways to say good morning in Spanish – these are the most common ones in different categories:
| Spanish | English | Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Good morning, ma’am | Greeting a woman | |
| Good morning, sir | Greeting a man | |
| Good morning, my love | Greeting your significant other | |
| Good morning, everyone | Greeting a group of people |
And in this video from Spring Spanish (a language learning platform I co-founded), teacher Paulísima gives several alternatives:
1. The correct way to greet someone in Spanish in the morning: ¡Buenos Días!
In Spanish, the morning is called “la mañana”, but Spanish speakers do not say “buena mañana”, that’s not Spanish at all – even though it’s grammatically correct. Another reason why translating word-for-word from English (and focusing too much on grammar only) doesn’t work.
PS . If you find yourself translating in your head a lot, this intro to Conversation Based Chunking™ will be interesting to you 🙂
The correct way to greet someone in the morning, be them family, colleagues, or the paperboy is “Buenos días”. This translates as good morning in English, and can be used both in formal and informal contexts.
In Latin America, it is also very usual to hear the singular version of this phrase: ¡Buen día! The meaning is exactly the same, and can be used in the exact same contexts.
If you are with close friends or with your family, you could even use the highly colloquial ¡Buenas!, a shortened version of:
- buenos días
| This expression (¡Buenas!) is not appropriate at work, in a business meeting, nor in any formal or semi-formal situation. |
Now, depending on to whom you are saying good morning in Spanish, you can add an appropriate title to your greeting. Depending on whether you’re addressing a man or a woman, a professional, or your boyfriend or girlfriend, the title will change.
Do you know what’s the best way to practice this? It’s Conversation Based Chunking! Learn the Spanish language without paying too much attention on grammar rules, instead, focus on chunks! Sign up to our Starter Pack to learn more!
2. Saying good morning in Spanish to a man or to a woman
When saying good morning in Spanish to a man, especially one that is older than we are, or that is higher in hierarchy, we can add the title señor, or señor + name/surname.
| When greeting a woman, we need to take into account their marital status, although this has been changing over the years and especially younger women don’t like to titles related to their civil status. |
Married women, or older women (even if we don’t know whether they are married or not) are señoras (Mrs.), unmarried young women are señoritas (Miss/Ms.)
When saying good morning in Spanish, you can also address a group at work or in a class, for example:
Saying good morning in Spanish to your significant other
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Good morning, my love. | |
| Good morning, darling. | |
| Good morning, my sweetheart. | |
| Good morning, my dear. | |
| Good morning, sunshine. | |
| Good morning, beautiful. | |
| Good morning, handsome. |
Saying good morning to a group or a class
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Good morning, everyone. | |
| Good morning, students. | |
| Good morning, children. | |
| Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. |
3. Other expressions to say good morning in Spanish
Even though the phrase buenos días is the most specific one, there are other Spanish sentences and expressions that work well as morning greetings. They can be used alone, or accompanying the usual buen día, and they usually show interest for the other person’s rest, or convey good wishes for the day ahead.
Specific morning greetings in Spanish
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Time to get up! | |
| (It’s) time to get up! | |
| How have you slept? | |
| Did you sleep well? | |
| Get up! It’s a beautiful day! | |
| How did you sleep? | |
| How are you this morning? |
If you’re leaving after breakfast, or another person is doing so, don’t forget to say:
¡Que tengas un buen día! (Have a nice day!)
¡Que tengas lindo día! (Have a nice day!)
And if you come across a colleague, you can say:
Good morning in Spanish to co-workers
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| How’s your morning going? | |
| How’s everything this morning? | |
| How are you today? | |
| What a nice morning! |
4. Practice using the correct way to say good morning in Spanish
It’s not enough to read through all of the blog contents. It’s also important to practice!
Take a look at these flashcards that we made just for you to practice saying good morning in Spanish:
And this was just part of the exercise… We have practice worksheets for almost all of our blog posts. The only thing you have to
5. Learn other Spanish greetings with Conversation Based Chunking
There you have it: 28 ways to say good morning in Spanish! Start out with a simple buenos días; afterwards, you can gradually add in some of the fancier alternatives to sound more natural in Spanish.
Make sure to get your free Spanish Chunking Starter Pack, where I show you a 4-step method to learn Spanish without having to memorize word lists and grammar rules.
It comes with tutorial videos for Conversation Based Chunking™, resource lists to get you started, and much more. Conversation Based Chunking™ is currently being used by hundreds of thousands of students across the world with great results. If you want to get fluent in Spanish, I recommend you check out the free starter pack and start implementing the methodology in your studies 🙂
