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I have a colleague who is blessed with a girl child and I posted a greeting saying

おめでとうございます

In reply to this, he said 

ありがとう。いま、すごく幸せです?

I guess he is asking me about my well being. How should I reply to such questions in Japanese if I want to politely say [I'm good thank you!]?

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  • 4
    Are you sure it was a question rather than a statement?
    – mamster
    Dec 12, 2018 at 5:42
  • I'm guessing the same thing as it was a happy occasion for him, but there was a question mark at the end of the statement so I was wondering!
    – VPK
    Dec 12, 2018 at 5:44
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    I'm guessing the question mark was a typo, because it makes perfect sense as a response and little sense as a question.
    – mamster
    Dec 12, 2018 at 5:47
  • Right, but still how should reply to such sentence, something like 「気をつけてください」or something else? If you could briefly describe it in an answer I will be happy to accept it as correct one.
    – VPK
    Dec 12, 2018 at 5:51
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    I'm pretty sure he meant to say Thank you. I am so happy. He might have tried to type ありがとう。今すごく幸せです! instead.
    – kabichan
    Dec 12, 2018 at 9:01

1 Answer 1

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I guess he is asking me about my well being.

In fact, I don't think so. 幸せ usually doesn't mean normal well-being but only the full-of-joy state, that like whoever has their child. It's not a word you use to ask if somebody is fine.

In this case, unless it's typo or mojibake, the final ? represents some degree of unsureness or hesitation towards previous words (or, choice of words). It's bit slangy, orthographical (non-verbal) usage of the sign, but quite widespread at least on the internet. They as often as not enclose the question mark with parentheses (?), in that case, more unambiguous to readers. With all of these it's still open to wide interpretation, but I guess he want to tell something like:

It hasn't hit me yet, but I suppose I'm really happy.

Is that so-called, I couldn't be happier?

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