Register Slip in a Thank-You Letter
A Year 12 student must write a 300-character thank-you letter in Japanese to a host family, the Suzukis, after a two-week stay. The student's draft opens: 鈴木さん、こんにちは。元気? まじで楽しかったよ! また来るね。ありがと! The student has good vocabulary and no major grammar errors, but the teacher says the draft would lose most of its marks on register alone. The task instructions say the letter is to be addressed to the host parents, who are in their fifties, and that the student should refer to two specific things: the mother's cooking and the father's help with a train route. The word limit is 300–400 characters, and the student's draft is only 120.
1. Identify the specific register problems in the draft and explain, for each, what the reader would actually perceive.
Read the worked answer
The draft is not 'casual Japanese'; it is casual Japanese aimed at a peer, delivered to adults who hosted the student. Each choice sends a signal:
鈴木さん - 'san' on a surname is not wrong in itself, but for a host family the student lived with, 鈴木さん or お父さん/お母さん as the family uses, or 鈴木様 in a formal letter, would fit. The bare greeting こんにちは in a written letter reads as a spoken hello pasted onto paper.
元気? - plain form with a question mark is intimate, the register of a close friend. To a host parent it reads as overfamiliar, almost as if the student is checking on a child.
まじで - slang. To a 50-something host this reads as immature or careless, and it undercuts the gratitude the letter is meant to express.
楽しかったよ and また来るね - the sentence-final よ and ね are spoken, peer-oriented particles. 来るね in particular announces a future visit as a given, which can sound presumptuous rather than hopeful.
ありがと - truncated casual thanks. For a two-week stay the reader expects ありがとうございました.
The cumulative effect is that the letter reads as if the student did not take the stay seriously. The fix is not to make it stiff and distant, but to shift to です・ます throughout, use お世話になりました, and express the same warmth through specific detail rather than slang.
2. Rewrite the opening in appropriate register, then explain how you would expand the draft to meet the 300–400 character requirement without padding.
Read the worked answer
A suitable opening:
鈴木さん、お元気ですか。先日は二週間たいへんお世話になりました。日本での毎日がとても楽しく、あっという間の二週間でした。
This keeps warmth but moves to です・ます, uses お世話になりました (the standard formula for a stay), and replaces まじで楽しかった with とても楽しく, which is warmer because it is sincere rather than emphatic.
Expanding to length without padding: the draft is short because it is generic. The task names two specific things, and each should become a short paragraph of concrete recollection, which adds length and marks at once.
- The mother's cooking: name a dish, say when she made it, and say what surprised or pleased the student - e.g. お母さんの作ってくださったお好み焼きは、初めて食べたのに家の味のように感じました。作り方を教えていただけてうれしかったです。
- The father's help with the train route: describe the problem, the help, and the result - e.g. お父さんに教えていただいた乗りかえのおかげで、一人で新宿まで行くことができました。あの時は本当に心強かったです。
- Close with a forward-looking line that is not presumptuous: またお会いできる日を楽しみにしています。どうぞお体に気をつけてください。
This reaches the character range through content, not filler, and every added sentence also demonstrates the grammar and vocabulary the task is marking.