Introduction

Spanish has a great many salutations and the one who you use depends upon a number of variables, of course.
There’s, of course, the generally used hola (oh-la). This just means “hello”in English. The etymology of the word “hola” is deeply interesting, but it’s of course beyond the scope of this book.
Anyhow, there are also the greetings which have to do with the time of day.There is buenos días (bwey-nohs di-ahs). This means literally “good morning” and is one of the more common  Spanish greetings aside from hola. There also is buenas tardes (bwey-nahs tar-dehs), which means good evening. This isn’t used as often as a conventional salutation, though it certainly can  be used with no problem. The last one in this category is buenas noches (bwey-nahs no-chess). This means literally “good night” and its usage is unwavering. You generally will only use this as  a goodbye to somebody for the night is you know that you won’t be seeing them again that night, if that is the case you should use the word "adiós " first; for not to confuse it with a greetings.
Lastly, there is muy buenos . (moy bwey-nohs). This is a very general greeting as compared to other ones such as buenos días and hola. You can use this greeting at pretty much any time of  day whenever you indicate the corresponding time of day, after using this words “days”, “evenings” and “nights” in the end.
So after all of that, we’re now officially in the conversation, engaging in the nigh professional art of small talk. These small talk sessions generally almost always start by asking somebody how  they are or how they’re doing. There are a ton of ways to ask this sort of question in Spanish.
Firstly, there are the more formal routes to be taken. To simply ask “How are you?”, you first need to think about who you’re talking to. Are you speaking to somebody your age? Younger?  Older? Have you met them before? Then you need to pick either the informal or the formal way to ask based upon your evaluations. The informal way to ask is to simply “¿Cómo estas ?” (co- moh es-tahs), meaning in a literal sense “how are you?”. The formal way is just the usted inversion of the prior question: ¿Cómo está usted ? (co-moh es-ta oos-ted). This means the same thing  as before, but this version is of course to be reserved for meeting new people or for talking to people who are in a position of superiority. 
On top of that, there are more casual ways to ask. You could say “how’s it going?”: ¿Cómo te va ? (co-moh teh va)
Simply asking “what’s up?” is certainly not out of the question: ¿Qué tal ? (kay tall)
Neither would be asking something along the lines of “what’s happening?”- ¿Qué pasa ? (kay pah-sah) - or “How have you been?”: ¿Cómo has ido ? (co-moh ahs ee-do)
All in all, there are a ton of ways to ask somebody exactly how they’re doing in Spanish. There are likewise a huge number of ways in which you could respond to this very question. Note that  being in a foreign country or situation means that the culture is inevitably different; in America and England, when we ask “how are you?”, we do so as a courtesy and generally not in the  seeking of a very well-thought out response or any sort of genuine emotional discourse. Certain other countries aren’t like this, and if you ask how they are, they’ll tell you how they are.
But for all intents and purposes, you may or may not give a very deep response. Should you choose to go with a more “standard” response, there are a number of different ways in which you  could phrase it.
You could start with the quintessential bien, gracias (byen, grah-see-as) which means simply “well/fine, thank you.” You could also opt for “very well” by saying muy bien (moy byen). You could  insert a certain amount of nihilistic apathy into your conversation by saying Como siempre which technically means “like always” but carries the weight more like “I am as I always seem to be.” If  you’re not feeling well, you can say that you’re sick by saying either estoy enfermo or estoy enferma depending upon your gender, men saying the first and women saying the second. And if  you’re not doing too well, you could say más o menos (moss oh men-ohs) meaning “so-so”, or you could say mal which translates to simply “badly” or “poorly”.

Then, there are multiple different ways in which you could say goodbye.There are a few generally used ones, and a few which are geared towards more special purposes.
The two general purpose ones that you need to know are adió s and chao.Both are common enough that I’m not going to tell you how to pronounce them. If you’re on the up, you very well may  notice a parallel between Spanish and neighboring Romance language Italian here, where ciao is used as a form of goodbye. Both of these are acceptable ways to say goodbye. This may also  vary depending on the intimacy of the conversation.

If you’ll be seeing the person soon, you could tell them Hasta pronto (ahs-tah pronto). But when I say soon, I mean soon. This is one place where the common conception of “soon” as used in  the U.S. or Britain generally doesn’t cut it in other timetables.
If you’re just going to see them at a later point in time, you could say Hasta luego (ahs-tah lwey-go). This could imply a lack of certainty about when you’ll meet again, however. It, as many  things do, ultimately depends upon the context in which it’s used.
The last one we’re going to talk about here is Hasta la vista (ahs-tah lah vees-tah, but honestly, who doesn’t know how to pronounce this one thanks to Hollywood?). This phrase means  essentially “Until next time” or “untill we meet again”. This one too can communicate a lack of certainty dependent upon the context.
On top of all of that, there are some essential phrases that you have absolutely got to know in order to ask for help in Spanish, or otherwise get around.
Firstly, there are two forms of “excuse me” you need to know. The first,perdón , means “excuse me” in the sense of “excuse me, could I ask you about something?” 
The other form of excuse me, con permiso , has a meaning more along the lines of “Please excuse me”, when you’re needing somebody to move out of your way.
You also need to know how to say thank you and sorry. In fact, more people need to know how to do this in their native language. The way that you say “thank you” in Spanish is easy: Gracias .  Nearly everybody knows that term. And the way you say sorry is additionally simple: Lo siento (lo syen- toh).

It’s most certainly also worth you learning how to say please in Spanish because you invariably are going to need to at some point. You do so by saying por favor . (pour fah-vor)
And lastly, at some point, eventually you’re going to have to ask for help in some way. The way to do this is by saying necesito ayuda (ney-cess-ee-toh ah-you-dah). This means literally “I need  help” or “I need aid”. 
There’s a lot of things you’ll need to learn before you’re ready for the streets, but hopefully now, you’ve got a solid enough foundation you can at least be courteous.