German › Phrases › Good Afternoon in German
The quick answer: guten Tag (GOO-ten tahk). There is a literal translation, guten Nachmittag, and Germans essentially never say it. Guten Tag covers the whole afternoon until the evening greeting takes over.
The honest answer
German has a word for good afternoon. It is guten Nachmittag. Almost nobody says it.
What Germans say in the afternoon is guten Tag — good day — and it carries the whole stretch from late morning until the evening greeting takes over. If you learn one thing from this page, learn that, because using guten Nachmittag in a shop is the fastest way to sound like a phrasebook.
💡 German splits the day into three, but greets in two and a half. Guten Morgen until roughly eleven, guten Tag through the middle and the whole afternoon, guten Abend from about six. Gute Nacht is not a greeting at all — it is only ever said on the way to bed.
Every greeting, and when it belongs
| German | Say it like | When to use it | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|
| guten Tag | GOO-ten tahk | Good day. What Germans use all afternoon. Final g hardens to a k. | |
| guten Nachmittag | GOO-ten NAHKH-mit-tahk | Literally good afternoon — correct, and almost never said. | |
| guten Morgen | GOO-ten MOR-gen | Good morning, until about eleven. | |
| guten Abend | GOO-ten AH-bent | Good evening, from about six. Final d hardens to a t. | |
| gute Nacht | GOO-tuh nahkht | Good night, only on the way to bed. That ch is the throaty one. | |
| hallo | HAH-loh | Hello. Safe with anyone under about sixty. | |
| Moin | moyn | The northern hello — and it works at any hour, including midnight. | |
| Grüß Gott | grewss got | Bavaria and Austria. Literally “greet God”. | |
| Servus | ZEHR-voos | Bavaria and Austria, informal. Hello and goodbye both. | |
| Mahlzeit | MAHL-tsite | “Mealtime” — the German office hello, roughly noon to two. | |
| Tschüss | chewss | Bye. The u-umlaut again: ew. | |
| Schönen Tag noch | SHUR-nen tahk nokh | Have a good rest of your day. |
Where you are standing changes what you say
Germany does not have one hello, and the regional ones are not quaint survivals — they are what people actually use.
The north says Moin. Hamburg, Bremen, the coast. It sounds like Morgen and has nothing to do with morning: it works at nine at night just as well as at nine in the morning. Moin moin is the warmer version.
Bavaria and Austria say Grüß Gott. Literally greet God, and used by everyone regardless of what they believe. Servus is the informal cousin, and like the Italian ciao it does hello and goodbye both.
The middle says guten Tag. Which is why it is the safe answer: it is understood everywhere and out of place nowhere, even if it marks you as not local.
Mahlzeit, the greeting that means lunch
Around noon in a German office you will hear people say Mahlzeit to each other in corridors and stairwells. It means “mealtime”, it is short for an old wish for a blessed meal, and it functions purely as a hello for the middle of the working day.
It is not an invitation to eat together and it does not need an answer beyond Mahlzeit back. It also belongs firmly to the workplace — say it in a shop and you will get a puzzled look.
Saying it right
Tag ends in a k. German hardens voiced consonants at the end of a word: Tag is tahk, Abend is AH-bent, halb is hahlp. The spelling keeps the soft letter, the mouth does not.
Nacht has the throaty ch. nahkht — the sound in Scottish loch, because the vowel in front is an a. After i or e the same letters go soft instead, which is why nicht is nisht and Nacht is nahkht. Two words apart by one vowel, and a completely different sound.
Grüß uses the u-umlaut and the sharp s. grewss — the ew of “few”, then a clean unvoiced s. The ß is never a b, however much it looks like one; our German alphabet page has the whole letter set.
Tschüss starts like the English ch. chewss. It is the goodbye you will use most, and it is informal — use auf Wiedersehen where you would have said guten Tag.
Du or Sie — decided before you open your mouth
You cannot greet someone in German without having already made a choice English speakers never have to make: which you you are using. It sits inside the greeting itself, and picking wrong is a bigger deal than any pronunciation slip.
Sie is formal, always capitalised, and it is the default with any adult you do not know — shopkeepers, officials, neighbours you have not been introduced to, anyone older than you. Du is for family, friends, children, students, and colleagues who have offered it.
The offer is the important bit. Moving from Sie to du is a small social event, and it is normally proposed by the older or more senior person: Wollen wir uns duzen? Until that happens, stay on Sie. Nobody has ever been thought rude for being too formal in German.
| German | Say it like | What it is | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sie | zee | You, formal. Capital S always, and the default with any adult stranger. | |
| du | doo | You, informal. Family, friends, children, and colleagues who have offered it. | |
| Wie geht es Ihnen? | vee gayt es EE-nen | How are you? Formal. | |
| Wie geht’s dir? | vee gayts deer | How are you? Informal. | |
| Wollen wir uns duzen? | VOH-len veer oons DOO-tsen | Shall we use du? The actual question people ask. | |
| Grüezi | GREW-tsee | Hello in Switzerland. Formal; hoi is the informal one. | |
| Servus | ZEHR-voos | Bavaria and Austria, informal. Hello and goodbye both. | |
| Auf Wiedersehen | owf VEE-duh-zay-en | Goodbye, formal. Pairs with guten Tag. |
The exception you will meet immediately. Berlin, and much of the under-thirty world, is markedly more du than the rest of the country — cafes, shops and start-ups will often use it with you straight away. Follow whatever the other person opens with and you will be right almost every time.
The German-speaking map is bigger than Germany
Around a hundred million people speak German as a first language, and the greeting changes as you cross borders that the language does not respect.
Austria uses Grüß Gott and Servus, and keeps its own calendar words too — Jänner for January and Feber for February, which we cover on our months in German page.
Switzerland says Grüezi, and Swiss German is far enough from standard German that Swiss television is sometimes subtitled for German viewers. Hoi is the informal one.
Bavaria sits closer to Austria than to Hamburg in almost every way that matters here, Grüß Gott and Servus included.
If your family came from a German-speaking country, which greeting they used is a real clue about where — the same way a surname ending is. Our German last names page follows that thread properly.
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