The Letter to the Landlord
You are writing on behalf of your aunt, who rents a small flat in Niš. Her landlord has raised the rent by 20 percent with two weeks' notice and has not repaired a leaking bathroom ceiling reported six weeks ago. Your aunt wants a formal letter in Serbian that is firm but does not damage the relationship, because she hopes to stay another year. She has asked you to include the dates, the amount of the increase, the repair request, and a request for a meeting. She also wants the letter to sound like it comes from her, not from a student, and she has told you she does not want to threaten legal action at this stage. You have her tenancy agreement, which states that rent changes require one month's written notice and that structural repairs are the landlord's responsibility.
1. Draft the opening two paragraphs of the letter in Serbian (about 90-130 words), establishing the facts and the tone your aunt requested.
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Model answer should include: (1) A formal salutation and identification - Poštovani gospodine [prezime], then pišem Vam u vezi sa stanom u ulici ... koji iznajmljujem. (2) Precise facts in the past tense: the date the leak was reported, the date the increase was announced, the old and new rent figures, and the two-week notice period. (3) A reference to the agreement without aggression - prema ugovoru, izmena kirije zahteva mesec dana pisane najave - presented as a reminder, not an accusation. (4) Polite framing of the request for repair: molim Vas da organizujete popravku. (5) A closing sentence for this section proposing a meeting, using the conditional for politeness - Bilo bi mi drago da se sastanemo. Register must be formal: Vi capitalised, no slang, no ti. The letter must avoid threats of legal action, as instructed, while still making the contractual point clear. Answers that omit the dates or the figures lose marks; answers that adopt an angry tone contradict the brief.
2. Explain which Serbian structures you chose to keep the letter firm but non-confrontational, and why.
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Model answer should name structures and justify each. (1) Passive and impersonal constructions - kirija je povećana, problem je prijavljen - move attention from blame to events. (2) The conditional for requests - zamolila bih Vas, bilo bi korisno - softens a demand into a proposal. (3) Modals of obligation attributed to the document rather than the writer - prema ugovoru, u skladu sa ugovorom - so the landlord is answering the contract, not the tenant. (4) Understatement instead of intensifiers: primećujem da popravka još nije izvršena rather than ništа niste uradili. (5) Sequencing words (najpre, zatim, na kraju) that make the letter read as orderly and reasonable. (6) Avoidance of the negative imperative, which in Serbian can sound sharp. Top-band answers explain the pragmatic effect of each choice and note the risk of over-softening, which could make the letter seem to accept the increase.