tere tulemast!
The English phrase welcome is translated into Estonian as tere tulemast!
The phrase tere tulemast! is a greeting used when someone arrives. You can expand this phrase to say Tere tulemast meie juurde to mean "Welcome to our place", or Tere tulemast sulle to say "Welcome to you".
Meaning: greeting given upon someone's arrival (intj)
What does it mean word for word?
Literally, tere tulemast! means "hello from coming!", composed of tere (hello) and tulemast (from coming or from the act of arriving).
Which one should you use?
While tere tulemast! is the specific greeting you say to someone upon arrival, the related form tervitama is the verb used to describe the act of greeting or welcoming someone or even the act of accepting something willingly.
Related words
How does it change in a sentence?
If you are welcoming multiple people, you may use the form Tere tulemas.
Did you know?
- The word tere in the greeting tere tulemast! is actually a shortened version of the word terve, which means 'healthy'.
- Estonians use tervitama not just for people, but also to describe the act of welcoming a new season or a change in weather.
- The phrase tere tulemast! uses a grammatical form called the elative case in tulemast, which indicates movement away from a starting point.
Examples in context
- Tere tulemast!Welcome.This example shows how to use the greeting tere tulemast!Tatoeba #468972 by ArsWalrus, translation #138919 by CM
Sources
- Wiktionary, “welcome” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries tere, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
