is it okay to regularly say 気をつけてください to someone departing out?


I just want to ask if it is okay to say to your boss who is going home after
work お疲れ様でした気をつけてください or it is impolite?

Thank you




Yes and no.

The phrase 気を付けてください alone is in polite form (towards a person of a higher
standing slightly better would be: お気を付けてください). However it does feel a little
bit more like "please take care" rather than casual English greeting "take
care". It would be strange if you used the phrase every single time a person
leaves.

To strangers or people with whom you rarely meet, or towards a person you meet
every day, but in an unusual situation like a typhoon coming, a phrase
お気を付けてお帰りください would be very appropriate.

Then again, you might contract it to the previous お気を付けてください, or お気を付けて
depending on familiarity, context, characters left in an electronic message,
etc. I guess your teacher considered your situation of being late to be
unusual.

(お気を付けてください would be also appropriate for a variety of situations, like
towards someone going for a business trip, going abroad for holidays, or when
you want to be nice and show your gratitude for something (being invited to a
dinner), but you asked specifically for "going home after work" and that might
feel a bit strange repeated day by day)

(...yet again, if you make it a ritual to say so, you're good to go, then a
shorter お気をつけて might work best, I guess)

