How to apologise to my neighbour for disturbing her?

roselette · 2026-04-07T23:19:08+02:00

Currently very embarrassed. I'm a postgraduate student and so is the Japanese girl in the apartment next door to me. For the last couple of weeks a friend from back in the UK has been staying with me and we've been talking until late quite often. Have usually been trying to keep the volume down but alas have definitely slipped up a few times. Sure enough just got a Line message from next door asking if we could keep it down as she's been hearing loud voices from my room recently and can't sleep. Immediately shut up and apologised profusely (in Japanese as was her original message - I'm fairly fluent and there isn't a language barrier) and now feeling a bit mortified. We talked a couple of times when I first moved in and she seems really nice and wanted to practice English at some point, and I agreed and then we both got completely overrun with coursework and haven't really spoken, so our interactions have been friendly but I don't really know her. On my own I'm really quiet and careful about sound travelling, so I'm pretty sure this is my first offence. I don't suppose anyone can advise me on what else I should do by means of an apology? I know Japan and my native UK have in common the point of hating to say anything until something is REALLY annoying, so I'm working on the principle that I've probably actually been annoying her for the last week and she's probably not happy especially as our semester starts this week. I feel like a handwritten note/card with an apology and some kind of edible gift that I could take to her tomorrow would be a good idea - does anyone have any advice or recommendations? Ideally I'd give her something from Britain but I already did that when I moved in a few months and I don't think a repeat of a pack of British tea she's already received would be a great look, so probably something Japanese I can get nearby. In my note I can also reiterate my pre-existing offer to help if she ever needs any work in English checked over. Any advice/feedback would be much appreciated, I've been on the other end of this kind of thing myself and I really don't want to be That Annoying (Gaijin) Neighbour.