Basic greetings: Greeting your neighbor

🇹🇼 [早安！] is natural in the morning, but with neighbors in Taiwan, a simple [早！] is even more common and casual.

💬 [這麼] often means "so" in the sense of "to this degree," as in [這麼早] "so early" or [這麼忙] "so busy." It's a handy pattern for reacting to what you notice.

💬 In Chinese, time words like [今天] usually come before the comment: [你今天這麼早] literally "you today so early." You can swap in other time words the same way, like [你昨天很晚回來] "you came back late yesterday."

🇹🇼 This is a friendly small-talk comment, not a strict question. Neighbors often say things like this just to acknowledge what they notice.

💬 [對] by itself often means "right" or "correct," and in conversation it also works like "yes, that's right." Add [啊] as in [對啊] to make it sound more natural and conversational.

🇹🇼 [對啊。] is a casual, friendly response. With neighbors, it fits everyday chat much better than a stiff, formal yes.

💬 [剛] often means "just" with something that happened very recently: [我剛到] "I just arrived." In [我剛要出門], it means "was just about to," so the exact meaning depends on what follows.

💬 [要] before a verb often means "be about to," not always "want to." So [要出門] here is "about to head out," like [要下雨了] "it's about to rain."

💬 [剛要 + verb] means "was just about to do..." as in [我剛要出門] or [我剛要吃飯]. It's a useful pattern for saying something was on the point of happening.