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In English, if someone has been gone for a while and has recently returned, it's common to greet them by saying, "Welcome back!" (or "Welcome back from your trip!", etc). What is the most natural way to say this in Spanish? Bienvenido de regreso sounds a little awkward to my (non-native) ears. Is that the only option, or is there something more common people would say in these situations?

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5 Answers 5

up vote 13 down vote accepted

In Spain is not usual to use "Welcome back!", at least I do not use it.

In my experience, I have a friend who had gone to Scotland to live four months ago, last week he arrived to Spain and all of us said "¡Bienvenido!".

If I translate "Welcome back!" I would say "¡Bienvenido de nuevo!" interpreting more than translating it, or "¡Bienvenido otra vez!".

I think that expression, at least in Spain, has no translation from English.

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I agree with you; ¡Bienvenido de nuevo! or ¡Bienvenido de regreso! are not common in Colombia either. Just ¡bienvenido! is the more common translation. –  Gonzalo Medina Sep 24 '12 at 18:58
Same in Mexico, just "Bienvenido". –  Alfredo Osorio Sep 24 '12 at 20:20
same in Nicaragua...bienvenido(a)...o tambien se puede usar que "que bueno verte". No he escuchado el uso de "bienvenido de regreso". Cuando mi amiga de Oklahoma vino de vuelta, la bienvenida fue decirle "que bueno verte", "que bueno regresastes" "Bienvenida de vuelta", o solamente le decian bienvenida. –  cayerdis Oct 18 '12 at 15:27
The same in cuba –  Emilio Gort Feb 22 at 21:18
Bienvenido de vuelta is very commmon in Perú, if ou don't want to say just Bienvenido –  El_Mochiq Feb 24 at 22:51

I would say:



¡Bienvenido de vuelta!

"¡Bienvenido de regreso!" is fine too, I don't know why but I prefer to use "vuelta" instead of "regreso".

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So bienvenido by itself works even if the person isn't new to the place you're welcoming them back to (e.g. if they lived in a city for years, left for a few months, and then came back)? –  jrdioko Sep 24 '12 at 2:29
Yes (at least in Chile). –  dusan Sep 24 '12 at 2:39
"¡Bienvenido de regreso!" in Spain is awful. Cacofonico. –  Zhen Sep 24 '12 at 8:41
@vorbote your comment should be an answer. –  dusan Sep 24 '12 at 15:31
@dusan done. Deleted the comment as well. –  vorbote Sep 24 '12 at 15:50

No, "¡Bienvenido de regreso!" is definitely not correct, as Zhen points out it is a cacophony. In all cases of translation, if you are not trying to convey spoken language (a truly hard task, as you need to know both the source and target dialect pretty well), then you should guide yourself by the use in the written language. In that same venue, "¡Bienvenido de vuelta!" isn't correct either. But, the use of the reflexive (Spanish subtle use of the dative), is perfectly legal and will make you sound both warm and educated: "¡Se bienvenido!"

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Usually, in a return, we would use "Que alegria que regresaras!" (It's a pleasure to have you back) or "Gracias por regresar!" (Thanks for comming back) but there's no language translation exact to Welcome Back! The exclamation point and welcome do refer to happiness about the event being expressed and because of this, I offered happy sentences that could be used in such situations.

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Generalmente en paises de habla hispana no se tendría en cuenta el hecho de que el individuo ha regresado "de nuevo". Si quien pregunta sigue insistiendo en la necesidad de traducir "Welcome back" literalmente, los comentarios anteriores son algunas buenas sugerencias. Sin embargo, este tipo de discrepancias son las que hacen especiales a los idiomas, pues cada uno de ellos percibe la realidad de maneras ligeramente diferentes.

In general, people in Spanish-speaking countries wouldn't take into account the fact that the individual has "come back again." If this thread's poster still wants to translate "welcome back" literary, the above comments are some possible suggestions. However, this kind of discrepancies make languages special, for every language perceives reality in slightly different ways.

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