あなたにも as a response to someone's best wishes

Question

I recently saw an exchange between two non-native speakers where one wished the other a happy new year, and the other replied with あなたにも (literally, "and to you").

Putting aside whether the use of あなた is appropriate, is Xにも actually idiomatic when returning someone's best wishes, e.g. 'happy new year', 'hope you have a great day' etc? It didn't feel right to me.

Taking 'happy new year' as an example, from a grammatical viewpoint, 明けましておめでとうございます has no target that takes に so I would not expect to see に in the response. However, just replying with あなたも feels wrong to me too.

Replying to something with "you too", "and to you" etc is very common in English. I wonder if あなた(に)も is actually natural in Japanese, or if there is some equivalent expression.

Answer 1

I think there's no phrase completely equivalent to 'you, too' in English.

First, I may be wrong, but 'you, too' is more often a response to a phrase where 'you' is a subject (Typically 'Have xxx' type phrase.). Considering the Japanese tendency to omit the subject, replying only with the subject should happen less often naturally.

That said, そちらも/そっちも/あなたも may work sometimes. For example, お元気で is a phrase literally meaning 'Stay healthy', used on the occasion of farewell. If the speaker and the listener are on casual enough terms (like old classmates), そっちも/あなたも do not sound too odd (the former more masculine, the latter more feminine; そちらも may be used, e.g. between the people who know each other by business).

Since there's some politeness implied in the situation where such phrases are used, it would be more common to repeat the phrase prefixing Xさんも, where X is the name of the speaker, if it makes sense. In the above situation, そちらも/あなたもお元気で can be used. For another example, when a person A says お気を付けて ('have a safe trip') to a person B, B can say Aさんもお気を付けて, assuming Aさん has some sort of travel. Otherwise people simply say ありがとうございます.

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As for the particular phrases 明けましておめでとうございます/よいお年を, both Happy New Year in English, we just repeat them to each other, just like English uses Happy New Year to each other.

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Another relevant phrase may be こちらこそ. When a person A says ありがとうございます or お世話になりました to a person B, B replies with こちらこそ meaning, I thank you/It's you who did the favor etc.