What does she mean?

Japanese
#1

I asked a friend to go with me to TeamLab Planets, and offered to pay for the tickets. She replied with this:

ありがとう先生！でも、気持ちだけ受け取っておくね:hugs::hugs:
Ok let’s go Teamlab!

In case you’re wondering, she calls me 先生 because we’ve been doing Zoom lessons, where I help her with Spanish and she helps me with my Japanese, for almost 2 years. Crazy how time flies.

Anyway, when I go to Google or DeepL, the translation seems too literal. I don’t know what she means by でも、気持ちだけ受け取っておくね though. Your help would be much appreciated!

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#2

An honest guess. ‘Thank you but no thank you. I appreciate the offer though!’

I wouldn’t take it personally at all, there could be a million reasons and I have no idea what the dynamic of your friendship is. Things that may be making her reluctant that immediately come to mind are the male/female aspect, the teacher/student aspect, or the age difference aspect. The last one is a total guess, you may be similar or the same age.

I don’t really have any helpful advice apart from to suggest a group hangout or something she’d maybe be more comfortable with. God speed!

Edit - Wait… The last part said ‘Ok let’s go to Teamlab’ in English? In that case Ignore my previous statement and take it as she probably meant ‘I am glad you wanna pay, but I can’t let you do that’.

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#3

I honestly have no idea about the Japanese or situation, but fwiw just thought it’s worth considering that perhaps the part in Japanese might possibly refer to the offer to pay for tickets, but the English part “Ok let’s go Teamlab!” might still stand?
It’s common in Japan for each person to pay separately.
However, I could be totally wrong :grimacing:

I guess it’s worth asking a follow-up question to try and clarify and you can also use the valid reason that you’re learning Japanese, and you can genuinely learn some useful “in the wild” Japanese from this too :smiley:

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#4

Thanks guys!

Your interpretation makes more sense to me now. I already paid for the tickets online, just to be safe, and she knows about that and is looking forward to us hanging out. We are only friends (nothing romantic), so perhaps she feels bad letting me pay for her ticket?

I didn’t want to ask her directly, but perhaps I should.

Thanks again guys :pray:.

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#5

Npnp, sorry for completely glazing over the English the first time :rofl:. If she knows you’ve already paid it’s probably all good. Just tell her she’d be doing you a favor because you don’t wanna waste something you’ve already paid for :ok_hand:.

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#6

No worries. You still managed to make sense of it even though I should’ve given more context about the situation. Thank you so much!!

P.S. Oh, and we’re about the same age. I’m like 5 years older, which may sound like a lot when you’re younger, but I’m 45 yo :older_man:

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#7

5 years is absolutely nothing :blush:. Especially when you’re both mature.

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