How to Answer the Question 'How Have You Been?' in Fluent English | Go Natural English

Oh, my gosh.

Hi.

How have you been?

It's been awhile since I've seen you.

Have I told you about the special one-on-one online

lesson practice with my friends at Italki?

You can learn more about it at the link below,

or go to gonaturalenglish.com/italki,

I-T-A-L-K-I.

Now the question that I asked you

in the beginning of this episode is one

that my English language learners ask me

about all the time.

How have you been?

How do answer this question?

I don't know.

When I'm out, and my native English speaker friends

come and ask me, how have you been,

I just stand there like, mm, I don't know what to say.

So I'm going to help you in this episode,

because it's a very common question that you're

going to get as you build relationships

with other English speakers.

This is a question that's similar to, how are you?

I think we all know this question, how are you,

and how to respond.

I have another video about how to respond to that question

if you're not sure.

Now how have you been is a little bit different,

because we only use this question with people

who we met in the past already.

So if it is your first time meeting someone, do not

ask them, how have you been?

And if someone asks you, how have you been,

you can assume that you've met them before, even

if you don't remember them.

So this question is really common between people

who have met before, but have not

seen each other for some time-- more than a week,

more likely two weeks, maybe a month, maybe a few months.

So if you just saw the person yesterday, don't ask them,

how have you been, because it's too soon.

This tense, how have you been, is

asking about how have you been.

It's asking about your period of time between a point

in the past that's over and completed

and continuing through the present.

So since that last time I saw you in the past,

how have you been in that period of time up until now?

That's what we're asking.

So how do we answer this question?

Let's keep it really simple.

You could answer with a short answer or with a longer answer.

So some shorter answers that would be great would be,

how have you been?

Good.

How have you been?

Great.

How have you been?

Not bad.

So basically, you can fill in any expression that

shows that you're good, excellent, fantastic,

great, never been better.

That's a pretty fun phrase to use.

Now what if you want to answer in a bit longer expression?

You want to express more of your ideas

and tell the person more about how you have been,

not just one word for an answer.

So here's the structure we're going to use.

I have been verb-ing.

So you might start with a short answer like, good.

I have been working a lot.

Now I'm saying it kind of slow, because I want

it to be really super clear.

Let me give you another example.

Great.

I have been studying English a lot.

Never been better.

I have been traveling all over the world.

So those are just some examples.

You could really use any verb like I have been working,

I've been studying, I've been traveling,

maybe some other interest that you have that you

want to tell people about.

I've been cooking a lot.

Maybe you met this friend at a cooking class,

so that would be an appropriate thing to tell them.

So if you want to sound more native-like,

let's speed it up a little bit.

So instead of, I have been work-ing a lot,

we're going to say, I've been working a lot.

So say it with me.

I've been working a lot.

One more time.

I've been working a lot.

And I need you to dance.

I need you to say this with some enthusiasm, please.

I've been working a lot.

OK, another example-- I've been studying a lot.

Oh, another example, I've been speaking a lot of English.

OK.

So you can tell I'm excited about this.

I want you to improve your English.

I want you to speak more English,

become more confident in your conversational ability,

so I want to tell you that my friends that at Italki have

a special offer for you to take one-on-one lessons

with an awesome native English speaker teacher.

So you can find out more about that at the link below,

or gonaturalenglish.com/italki, I-T-A-L-K-I.

And basically what it is is you take your first lesson,

and then you get $10, which is also 100 points.

It's basically $10 back so that your second lesson

would be free, because lessons are about $10 per lesson,

depending on the teacher.

So I hope that's not too confusing,

but basically, it's two lessons for the price of one,

which is totally awesome.

So I recommend that you try that out

if you want to practice this phrase and a lot

of other phrases in English.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode.

Remember to subscribe to Go Natural English here

on YouTube, and I'll see you again soon.

All right.

Bye for now.