Writing a Formal Email vs a Message to a Friend
Your Arabic class is organising a cultural evening. You must produce two short texts in Arabic (40–60 words each): (A) a formal email to the school principal inviting him to attend, and (B) a WhatsApp message to your friend Layla asking her to help with the food. You have learned greetings, أريد, هل يمكنك, شكراً, days of the week, and basic food vocabulary. You are less confident with formal honorifics and with the imperative. Your teacher warns that using the same register for both will lose marks. You must decide what to change between the two texts and why.
1. List the concrete differences you would build into text A (formal) versus text B (friendly), and give one Arabic example for each difference.
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Differences and examples:
- Opening. Formal: a full greeting + title. تحية طيبة وبعد، حضرة مدير المدرسة المحترم (Greetings, respected principal). Friendly: casual. مرحبا ليلى! كيف حالك؟
- Pronoun/addressee. Formal: plural/honorific حضرتكم to create distance and respect. Friendly: singular أنتِ (feminine, since Layla is female).
- Request form. Formal: softened, impersonal. نرجو من حضرتكم حضور الأمسية (we request your attendance). Friendly: direct question. هل يمكنك مساعدتي في الطعام؟
- Sentence length and connectors. Formal: longer, with و and لذلك; friendly: short, with ! and ؟.
- Closing. Formal: وتفضلوا بقبول فائق الاحترام (a set formula). Friendly: شكراً حبيبتي، أراك قريباً.
Key principle: register is carried by pronoun choice, request strategy (impersonal vs direct), formulaic openings/closings, and sentence length - not just by vocabulary.
2. Write text A in Arabic (about 40–60 words) and annotate two places where you deliberately avoided a structure you cannot control.
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Text A: تحية طيبة وبعد، حضرة مدير المدرسة المحترم، يسعدنا أن ندعوكم إلى الأمسية الثقافية يوم الخميس الساعة السادسة مساءً في قاعة المدرسة. نرجو من حضرتكم حضور الأمسية. شكراً جزيلاً لكم، وتفضلوا بقبول فائق الاحترام.
Annotations:
- I avoided a complex honorific verb such as تشرفنا بحضوركم and used the simpler نرجو من حضرتكم حضور - same politeness, a frame I can control.
- I avoided the imperative احضر (attend), which can sound abrupt in formal writing, and used the noun حضور after نرجو. This sidesteps imperative formation and keeps the tone deferential.
Note: I kept the plural ـكم throughout to match حضرتكم and stay consistent.
3. Write text B in Arabic (about 40–60 words) and explain one risk of 'over-formalising' it.
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Text B: مرحبا ليلى! كيف حالك؟ عندنا أمسية ثقافية يوم الخميس. هل يمكنك مساعدتي في الطعام؟ نحتاج إلى كعك وعصير. أرجو أن تأتي الساعة الخامسة لأننا نحتاج إلى وقت. شكراً حبيبتي، أراك قريباً!
Risk of over-formalising: if I wrote حضرة الآنسة ليلى المحترمة or نرجو من حضرتك, it would create unwanted distance and could read as sarcastic or cold between friends. Arabic friendship register tolerates direct questions (هل يمكنك...؟), terms of endearment (حبيبتي), and exclamation marks. The exam tests whether I can shift register, not whether I can write formal Arabic everywhere. The skill is matching audience: principal = distance and formulas; friend = warmth and directness.