How are you?

‘Hi, how are you?’

This is the question Dutch people will ask to almost everyone they will start speaking to. It’s just a polite question to inform how the other is going and to show interest. The usual answer is: ‘Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. How are you?’ I think none of the people will take the question really seriously by sharing their concerns, their bad experiences or other things. This will happen later in the conversation. Of course, it’s different when you know a person well.

I heard from a Dutch girl in here that she always asked a girl on her flour how she was doing when she saw her. After 2 months, the foreign girls got really irritated and asked why the Dutch girl always asked: ‘How are you’. Because everything was fine to her.

After this story I understood that some people are not used to the question, but for Dutch people it’s just normal to ask.

So, what would you say when I’d ask you: How are you?