How do I say 'goodbye'?
The most common casual goodbye in everyday speech, especially among younger speakers and in cities.
拜拜
Bye / see you.
Bye-bye (borrowed from English).
Bye / see you.
WHEN IT FITS
拜拜 is one of the most successful English loanwords in everyday Chinese — it is not slang or youth-speak, it is the default casual goodbye across generations in urban China. You hear it between colleagues leaving the office, friends ending a WeChat call, and shopkeepers to customers.
再见 is correct but carries slightly more weight — it literally means “again see,” and using it casually feels a touch more formal, like saying “farewell” instead of “bye.” It is the right choice for business settings or when you genuinely may not cross paths again.
The host-guest asymmetry matters: when you are leaving someone’s home, the host says 慢走 (“take care going”) and the guest says 再见 or 拜拜. Saying 慢走 as the guest sounds odd — you are telling the host to walk carefully in their own home. This kind of role-locked expression is common in Chinese and is exactly the sort of thing a translator won’t flag.
HOW PEOPLE ACTUALLY SAY IT
我走了啊，拜拜。
I'm heading off. Bye!
Leaving a casual gathering好，那就这样，拜拜。
Okay, that's settled then. Bye.
Ending a phone callCHOOSE BY SITUATION
再见
Goodbye / see you again.
More formal partings, or when you genuinely don't know when you'll meet again慢走
Walk slowly / take care going.
As a host seeing guests off — the host says 慢走, not the guest回头见
See you later / catch you around.
Casual, vague future meeting — can be genuine or politely non-committal