So, my new Tutor used a greeting today that I hadn’t heard before and didn’t know how to respond:
お変わりませんか？/ お変わりありませんか？
It actually stumped me and I needed them to translate as even when he said it a second time, I still didn’t grasp what he was asking (he used a slightly different form of it using 変わった but essentially it had the same meaning as the above).
Does anyone know what the correct response is to this? I hadn’t heard it before but apparently it is used more as a formal greeting similar to “How are you?” in English, more in a business or professional sense.
You sure it wasn’t お変わりありませんか? I’ve never heard this as a greeting before either way, but I wanted to check.
Anyway, it sounds like a greeting that’s asking if anything has changed. Like “anything new with you?”. That translation obviously doesn’t capture the tone since the お makes it a more formal phrase, but I think the idea is the same.
Sorry, yes, that was most likely what he said after I said I didn’t understand.
He did repeat it but the only part I picked up from the original greeting was 変わった (I remember because it was the one part that I didn’t understand so focused on it). Essentially he was using a different form of the greeting you’ve posted as he did then use that one (which I hadn’t heard before either) then translated it and I had no idea how to respond in Japanese so just said nothing had happened since we had last had a lesson.
Just wondered if there was a specific response as I feel like he’s going to ask me again and I have no real idea how to respond to it (like “how are you?” in English, most people don’t actually want to hear how you are, they just want to hear a scripted response like “Yeah, all good.” or “I’m fine thanks, how are you?” regardless of what is going on in life).
You could say おかげさまで, which is like Thanks for asking, and if you want to give some answer could add 元気にしています, like I am well. And ask back. Xさんもお変わりないですか。and see what happens.
Is there a typo in that? I don’t see that in my dictionary.
Is that actually a valid response? Seems similar to being asked “what’s new with you” and responding with “I’m doing well”. Just doesn’t seem to fit the question to me.
Caveat that if this is a turn of phrase expecting generic non-answer responses I could be wrong.
One of my language partners usually asks 変わったことがありますか and what she wants to hear is whether I have any news to tell her
(literally: “did anything change?”)
Sounds stupid but I didn’t think of that until after the lesson
I will remember for next time.
Yeah. I did say I didn’t understand how to respond and they repeated it in English but didn’t elaborate on what they were looking for as an answer (though it may have been a genuine, what’s new with you kind of response they were looking for, I’m just not sure).
This could have been it as he definitely used 変わった in it but I got hung up on that because my brain couldn’t figure out what it was
Thank you everyone, I’ll ask next time he uses it and see if there is an expected response or if it a genuine question they are looking for answers for.
