Greetings: “你好！(Nǐ hǎo!)” or “你好吗？(Nǐ hǎo ma)?”

In the Chinese language, “你好！(Nǐ hǎo!)” means Hello! and “你好吗？(Nǐ hǎo ma?)” means How are you? While they both can be used as greetings, there are some differences between them.

“你好！(Nǐ hǎo!)” is a statement, which is commonly used as a greeting where the reply is usually, “你好！(Nǐ hǎo!). Also, there is the more polite form “您好！(Nín hǎo!),” and the reply to this greeting should be “你好！(Nǐ hǎo!)” or “您好！(Nín hǎo!).” “你好吗？(Nǐ hǎo ma?),” on the other hand, is a question. The reply to “你好吗？(Nǐ hǎo ma?)” can be “我很好！(Wǒ hěn hǎo!) I’m very good!” or “还不错！(Hái búcuò!) Not bad” etc.

Example1:

Wáng Wěi:  Nǐ hǎo, Lǐ Lì.
王        伟： 你 好，李丽。

Wang Wei: Hello, Li Li.

Lǐ Lì: Nǐ hǎo, Wáng Wěi.
李丽：你 好，王     伟。

Li Li: Hello, Wang Wei.

Example2:

Zhāng Míng: Nǐ hǎo ma, Lucy?
张           明：你 好   吗，Lucy?

Zhang Ming: How are you, Lucy?

Lucy: Wǒ hěn hǎo.
Lucy:  我   很   好。

Lucy: I’m fine.

In our test, Zhang Li said, “我很好，谢谢！(Wǒ hěnhǎo, xièxie!),” which is the reply to the greeting “你好吗？(Nǐ hǎo ma?)” So the answer is B.