Register shift in a formal complaint email
You are completing a written assessment for a school exchange to Chile. Your host family's landlord has not repaired a broken heater for 18 days despite three verbal requests, and the family asks you to draft an email to the property agency. You have 200 words maximum and must include: the dates of the requests (3, 10, 15 June), the impact on a household with a 70-year-old grandmother, a request for written confirmation of a repair date, and a polite but firm closing. Your teacher has warned that the assessment rewards the formal register of a written complaint, not the informal register you use with friends. You draft an opening line: 'Hola, os escribo porque el calentador sigue roto y ya estamos hartos.'
1. Identify the register problems in the drafted opening line and rewrite it to fit the assessment's formal complaint context, justifying each change.
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The draft has three register problems. First, 'Hola' alone is too informal for a written complaint to an agency; Spanish formal correspondence typically opens with a formula such as 'Estimados señores:' or 'Muy señores míos:'. Second, 'os escribo' uses the informal plural pronoun 'os' (tuteo/vosotros), which assumes familiarity; in a Chilean formal context, the agency should be addressed with 'ustedes' and the verb in third person: 'les escribo'. Third, 'ya estamos hartos' ('we're fed up') is colloquial and emotional; a formal complaint states the facts and consequences rather than venting. A rewritten opening: 'Estimados señores: Les escribo en nombre de la familia X para informarles de que el calentador de nuestra vivienda sigue sin funcionar.' This keeps the complaint clear while maintaining distance and respect. The reasoning matters more than the exact formula: the assessor is checking that you can identify the pronoun system (vosotros vs ustedes), the greeting formula, and the shift from emotive to factual language.
2. The word limit is 200 words. Explain how you would prioritise the four required content points if you find the draft running to 240 words, and what you would cut first.
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Prioritise by function, not by order of appearance. The non-negotiable elements are: (1) the factual timeline of requests (3, 10, 15 June), because it establishes negligence; (2) the request for written confirmation of a repair date, because it is the actionable outcome of the email. The grandmother detail is persuasive but can be compressed to a short clause ('afecta especialmente a una persona mayor'). The polite closing can be reduced to one formulaic sentence ('Quedo a la espera de su respuesta. Atentamente,'). Cut first: redundant politeness stacking (multiple apologies or thanks), repeated restatements of the problem, and adjectives that add emotion but no information ('increíble', 'lamentablemente' repeated). Also cut any explanation of why heating matters in winter - the reader knows. Keep concrete nouns and dates. This reflects the assessment's emphasis on purpose and audience: a formal complaint is judged on clarity and completeness of the facts, not on length.