Write an article based on this "Stick with versions of "nǐ hǎo" to be safe. Answer the phone with "oi" in Hakka Chinese. Greet a crowd with "dâga-haó" in Shanghainese."
While exact pronunciation varies from region to region and dialect to dialect, the most common way to say "hello" is almost always some form of "nǐ hǎo."  In all dialects, the Chinese script for this greeting is written as 你好. Note that the romanization of 你好 will usually give you a rough idea of how to pronounce it. In Hakka Chinese, for instance, the romanization is Ni ho. The beginning nǐ sound is harder, while the ending hǎo sound sounds less like the English "ow" and more like the English long "o." In Shanghainese, on the other hand, the romanization is "Nong Hao." While the hǎo portion is very similar, the beginning nóng sound is more elongated and comes to a hard conclusion at the end of the syllable. The Mandarin and Cantonese phone greetings do not work with Hakka Chinese.  Used in other contexts, oil is an interjection meaning something along the lines of "oh." In Chinese script, I am writing as 噯. A rough pronunciation is simply Oy or ay. This greeting translates into "hello everybody" and can be used when greeting more than one person.  In native Chinese script, this phrase is written as 大家好. A rough pronunciation of this phrase is due-gee how". DA is a fourth (sharp, falling) tone and Jia is a sustained pitch (a first tone word).