How do you greet someone in Tagalog?

Kumusta is the all-purpose greeting, used the way hello and how's it going are used in English. To an older person or a stranger, say Kumusta po kayo. The usual reply is Mabuti naman, meaning I'm fine.

What is the formal Tagalog greeting?

Add po. Magandang umaga po for good morning, Kumusta po kayo for how are you. Po is a respect particle with no English translation; it marks the whole sentence as polite.

What does Kumain ka na mean?

Literally have you eaten, but it is used as a greeting, roughly the way English speakers ask how's it going. It is not usually a real question about food, though it can turn into an offer of some.

Tagalog greetings, and what to say back

Most greeting lists give you the opening and leave you standing there when somebody answers. These come in pairs.

The one you will use most

Kumusta does the work of hello, hi, and how are you all at once. It came from the Spanish ¿cómo está? and it is the safest thing you can say to anybody.

Rank	Tagalog	What it does	Register
9	Kumusta?Play	How are you? / heyFrom the Spanish 'como esta'. Works as a greeting on its own, the way 'how's it going' does.	neutral
10	Kumusta po kayo?Play	How are you? (respectful)kayo is the plural 'you' used as a singular respectful one, exactly like French vous.	polite
11	Mabuti namanPlay	I'm fine	neutral

Time of day

These are more formal than kumusta and are what you say walking into a shop, an office, or somebody's house. The po on the end is doing the politeness.

Rank	Tagalog	What it does	Register
25	Magandang umaga poPlay	Good morning	polite
26	Magandang hapon poPlay	Good afternoon	polite
27	Magandang gabi poPlay	Good evening	polite

Meeting someone

Rank	Tagalog	What it does	Register
28	Anong pangalan mo?Play	What's your name?	neutral
29	Ako si ___Play	I'm ___	neutral
53	Ikinagagalak kitang makilalaPlay	Nice to meet youCorrect and quite formal. In practice most people just say Kumusta and a name.	polite

The greeting that is not about food

Kumain ka na? means have you eaten. It is asked the way English speakers ask how's it going, and a straight yes or no is a perfectly good answer. It is also, often enough, a real offer, which is why the safe reply is a warm one.

Rank	Tagalog	What it does	Register
34	Kumain ka na?Play	Have you eaten?Asked the way English speakers ask 'how's it going'. It is not really about food, and answering 'not yet' will very often produce food.	neutral
14	Kain tayo!Play	Let's eat!Offered to anyone in the room when you start eating, and it is a courtesy as much as an invitation. If you are not joining, the expected answer is a warm 'Sige, salamat'.	casual

Kain tayo gets said to anybody in the room when you start eating. It is an invitation and a courtesy at the same time, and the expected reply if you are not joining is Sige, salamat.

Leaving

Rank	Tagalog	What it does	Register
15	Ingat!Play	Take careHow you end a goodbye. Literally 'be careful', used the way 'take care' is.	neutral
1	SigePlay	Okay / go ahead / sureDoes far more work than 'okay' does in English. It ends calls, agrees to plans, waves off an apology and closes a conversation. If you learn one word, learn this one.	neutral
19	Tara na!Play	Let's go!	casual

Drill the greetings with audioThe six words that run the language — Tagalog puts a little word in front of every noun to show what it is doing. There are only six of them. No account, nothing to install.

The frequency ordering on this site is an informed estimate, not a corpus count. There is no published frequency count for conversational Tagalog, so it prints a rank and never a percentage. When a real count exists, the order changes and this line changes with it.

It teaches Tagalog as spoken around Manila, which is not the same thing as Filipino and is not the whole country. Cebuano and Ilocano are different languages, not accents.

Nothing is drilled until a native speaker has checked it. What has been checked, by whom, and what is still owed is written down on the sources page.