How to say "How are you" in Polish?

How to say "How are you" in Polish?" - when you meet someone who you know?
Forget about "Jak się masz" (How are you?), because Poles almost never use this expression nowadays.
"Jak się masz?" doesn't sound natural to native speakers, though this expression exists in the Polish language (the most often in some textbooks for foreigners).
So I recommend to you to use some other more useful expressions instead of "Jak się  masz?".
So what should you say after "hello" in Polish when you meet someone who you know?

There are a few options. You you can ask:

• Co nowego? (What's new? How are things)
• Co słychać? (What's up? What's new? How's it going?)
• Co u ciebie? (What's new with you? How are you doing?)
• Co tam? (What's up?)
• Jak tam? (What's up?)

The last two expressions are quite popular, but you must remember that they are very informal,
used mostly among friends and family members, or young people e.g. students. I'm sorry I haven't added the last two expressions to my recording.

If someone asked you first, your question looks a bit different:

• - A u ciebie co nowego? (How about you?)
•  -A u ciebie co słychać? (How about you?)
• A u ciebie? (How about you?)

Typical answers to these questions are:

• U mnie? (me? are you asking about me?) - a kind of introduction
• Nic nowego (same old stuff)
• Po staremu (same old stuff)
• Wszystko po staremu (same old stuff)
• Nic ciekawego (nothing interesting)
• Jak zawsze (as always)
• Jak zwykle (as usual)
• W porządku (all right)
• Wszystko w porządku (everything is all right)

You can listen to these answers (native speaker's voice):



And now you can see a typical small talk between two Poles, who know each other but aren't close friends (the conversation is conducted in informal way).

The dialogue 

- Cześć! (Hi!)
- Cześć! (Hi)
- Co słychać? (What's new?)
- Nic nowego. A u ciebie?
(Nothing much. What about you?)
- Wszystko po staremu. (All the same stuff)
- No to cześć!  (So - bye!)

Of course - she should also say "cześć" as goodbye at the end of the conversation, but there was no space in the picture.

You can listen to this dialogue here (native speaker's voice):

Questions "Co nowego?" and "Co słychać?" can be used in both formal and informal situations.
"Co u ciebie słychac" is informal (used between friends or when we talk to children) because of a word "ciebie" (you - one of grammar forms of the word "ty"). If you want to use that expression in formal situation - you should ask "Co u Pani słychac?" (when you are talking to a woman)
or "Co u Pana słychać" (when you are talking to a man).
All the answers used in this text can be used both in formal and informal situations, although many Poles avoid these questions when they talk to close friends and move on straight to the point.