In Malay, the most common formal greetings change depending on the time of day. They all start with the word selamat, which means “safe” or “peaceful.” When used in a greeting, it’s like wishing someone well.

Let's start with the morning. From when you wake up until around noon, you would say good morning.

When midday hits, there’s a specific greeting for the early afternoon, typically from noon until about 2 p.m.

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, you’ll use a different phrase. Think of this for the time period from roughly 2 p.m. until sunset.

Finally, once it gets dark, you switch to the greeting for “good night.” You can use this when greeting someone at night or when you're about to leave or go to bed.

Of course, you don’t always need to be so formal. With friends or in a relaxed setting, a simple, friendly greeting works perfectly. The easiest one is borrowed directly from English.

Just like in any language, it’s polite to ask how someone is doing. The most common way to do this in Malay is to ask, “What’s the news?” which is their version of “How are you?”

So, what do you say if someone asks you that? The standard, polite response is to say you are well and thank them.

This literally means “News good, thank you,” but it translates perfectly to “I’m fine, thank you.” Khabar baik (kah-bar bah-eek) means “fine” or “good news,” and terima kasih (te-ree-mah kah-seh) means “thank you.”