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I'm very curios to know about the meaning of "お元気ですか?". This could be the very
basic question. But once I asked my office colleague(Japanese Native)
"お元気ですか?". so his reply was very shocking to me. He replied me something like
"Do you feel I am sick?".

But as per the study I thought Its simple meaning as "How are you?". So now
I'm curios to know some other better option to use Instead of "お元気ですか" or I
did some mistake at the moment? Please guide/suggest some better options, when
we meet usually to person but maybe once in a day.
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2018-11-09T05:58:34.653
62746
2018-11-17T13:12:01.423
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politeness business-japanese
Any better way to ask "How are you?" instead of "お元気ですか？"
They tend to take that "how are you ?" as a "are you alright ? / is there a
problem ?" , so I think it is better to not ask as long as you dont think they
have a problem.

Example:

A) Your co-worker seems alright today so you just say "Hi" and everything is
good.

B) Your co-worker seems a bit sick or seems to have a problem. In this case
you can ask "お元気ですか"

That's just what I think so I don't know if it helped.
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2018-11-09T08:04:02.110
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2018-11-09T08:04:02.110
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To a co-worker I would use something like "最近どうですか？忙しいですか？", etc. instead. If
you haven't seen the co-worker for a few months, a "元気にしてましたか？" would sound
natural as well I think.

If you want to fill silence when with a co-worker I recommend you make obvious
observations about the weather; "寒いですねぇ" or "暑いですねぇ", "明日台風がくるみたいですねぇ", etc.

お元気ですか is translated as "how are you" but it's just not used as often as "how
are you" in English.
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2018-11-17T13:12:01.423
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2018-11-17T13:12:01.423
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answer