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How To Say ‘How Are You?’ In Navajo & Common Responses

In this post, you will learn how to say ‘how are you?’ in Navajo. You’ll also learn common responses so you can respond if you’re asked this question. This can be really useful if you’re speaking with someone from the Navajo Nation or if you’re travelling there. 

Navajo is one of the most widely spoken Native American languages and is spoken primarily in the Southwestern United States. 

It is spoken by the Navajo people, who are Native American, and has around 170,000 native speakers. The states with the largest Navajo population are Arizona and New Mexico.

I have written all of the below words/phrases phonetically to help you with your pronunciation.

How To Say ‘How Are You?’ In Navajo

There are a few different ways to ask ‘how are you?’ in Navajo.

Please note that asking ‘how are you?’ is not really a conversation starter in Navajo. As an example, you would ask this if you knew someone had been sick recently. It’s not used in the same conversational way as we use it in English.

How are you doing?Hait-ao nana?
How are you doing?Haa la ani-te?

To start a conversation or find out what’s up with somebody, you can use one of the following instead:

What’s up?Aa ha-ii?
What’s the gossip?Aa ha-ii daha ni?
What’s the news?Aa ha-ii baa dahane?
What are you doing?Aa ha-ii baa nanina?

Another good phrase to learn is ‘hello’ in Navajo. It’s the perfect conversation starter.

You can also just use the word ‘Aa’ as a way to start a conversation with someone as it literally means ‘open’ or ‘open up’.

Check out the video below to hear the pronunciation of these phrases:

How To Respond To ‘How Are You?’ In Navajo

There are many different ways that you can reply to this question. Below are the most common responses to this question. I’ve also included how to say ‘thank you’ as it’s polite to thank someone if they ask how you are.

Thank youAhehee
I’m tiredCh-ee-dee-yah
I’m happyShil-ho-zho
I’m excitedShil na-ho-zho
I’m angrySha-ha-chi
I’m sadDoo shil hat sii da
I’m fineYa anish-tee

Check out the below video to hear the pronunciation of these phrases. It also includes some additional responses:

Example Conversation:

Person 1:  Haa la ani-te? (How are you doing?)

Person 2: Shil-ho-zho, ahehee. Haa la ani-te? (I’m happy, thank you. How are you doing?)

Person 1: Shil na-ho-zho. (I’m excited)


Thanks for reading this post. 

You should now know how to say ‘how are you?’ in Navajo and you should also be able to respond if you’re asked! 

You can’t go wrong with these simple phrases.