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I have seen 聞名不如見面 to mean 'nice to finally meet you', but am I correct to feel that this is too formal, or still colloquial?

How else do you see 'nice to finally meet you' in an informal environment?

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  • "经常听人聊到你,终于见到本人了", "终于见到你了,不容易啊", "听说了你好多事,终于见到你了"
    – Shaw
    Dec 8, 2020 at 3:24
  • "...in an informal environment?" The question is how informal? Perhaps a yardstick would be the longer the greeting, the more formal it gets. Like "Hi", "How are you", "Very pleased to have met you". So, a short, informal greeting would be 幸會 / 幸会, (Cantonese -- (Jyutping): hang6 wui6) -- literally, “fortunate meeting” Dec 8, 2020 at 3:32

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聞名不如見面 is a comment. It means "better to see it in person than belief hearsay".

Example:

"I have heard a lot about Paris, now I am here, it really is 聞名不如見面" (implies the actual place is not what you expected, maybe better, maybe worse, maybe totally different)

If you use this comment as a greeting, you should also state what good thing about that person you've just found out upon meeting him

A polite way to say 'nice to finally meet you' in Chinese is '久仰'

Example:

「陳老師, (初次見面),久仰,久仰!」- "Master Chen, (first time we meet,) I have always admired you!"

You can skip 初次見面 because 久仰 already indicated you have only been hearing about him but had not met him before

久仰大名 (long time admiring your fame) is a polite way to say "hearing a lot about you for a long time"

幸會 (it is a fortunate meet) is also a polite way to say the same thing, but not as humble as 久仰

Example:

「陳老師,(初次見面),幸會,幸會!」

Another polite way to say "nice to finally meet you" in Cantonese is to "「好榮幸,終於同你見面!」 (It is an honor to finally meet with you)

If you don't want to be too formal, you can say:「真係好高興,終於同你見面!」(glad to finally meet you)

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