Greetings in Czech

Photo taken of a mural of a restaurant in Plzeň

Ahoj! Jak se máte? (= Hi! How are you?)

Today I wanted to start with writing a little bit about greetings in Czech. There are several ways to greet someone in Czech depending on the time of the day and the person that you're greeting. It's important to know that when it comes to strangers you should generally always use the formal forms. Politeness is very important in the Czech language and while most people probably won't be offended if you use the incorrect form, especially as a foreigner, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Formal greetings:

Dobré ráno - Good morning (04:00-09:00)

Dobré dopoledne - Good morning (forenoon) (09:00-12:00)

Dobrý den - Good day

Dobré odpoledne - Good afternoon (12:00-17:00)

Dobrý večer - Good evening (17:00-23:00)

Dobrou noc - Good night (23:00-04:00)

Na shledanou - Goodbye

While the amount of greetings and their 'timeframes' could come across as a bit overwhelming, from my (little) experience in the Czech Republic, dobrý den, dobrý večer and na shledanou are the most used ones. You can basically say dobrý den the entire day and no one will look at you funny. If you're wondering why sometimes it's dobrý, dobré or dobrou it's because of the gender of the noun that it's connected to. I will explain this more thoroughly in a different post.

Informal greetings:

Ahoj - Hi / Bye

Nazdar - Hi / Bye

Čau - Hi / Bye (The Czech version of ciao)

Pa - Bye

Nashle - Goodbye

Informal greetings are usually used amongst friends and family. I've heard people say nashle when leaving shops as well so it seems that this is not considered impolite. Now you know how to greet someone and say goodbye to someone in Czech.

Did you already know (all of) these greetings?

Mějte se hezky!

Lysanne