Wednesday, 9 July 2014

See you .... whenever

So there are common phrases in English for departing a conversation. Things like:

See you soon.

Be right back.

Talk to you later.

Later.

...and so on.

So what are the  ways to say these sorts of things in German?

Lets start with simple a "bye".

Informally this would be Tschüss. Formally this would be Auf Wiedersehen. In Auf Wiedersehen the "sehen" part means see. So the phrase does mean to see you ... sometime. Literally is means
"to see again".

wieder-sehen : again - see


But there are a series of "see you ... whenever" sayings that are also important. They all start with the word "bis".

For example "bis bald" which means "bye for now". The word "bis"  can be means to be "until" or "up to". It depends on the context and the time frame meaning of what is said with it. Here are some other examples:

"bis später" - see you "soon" ; expected to be within some hours , usually same day


"bis gleich" = soon, but expected to be within minutes from no, this is similar to "be right back"

"bis bald" = "soon" ; in the yet undetermined future, usually several hours/days/weeks