Structuring a 120-Word Email: Choosing Between Two Plausible Openings
Independent written-script classroom exercise. Any times, word targets and marking priorities below are hypothetical task instructions, not the official Finnish examination. No audio is supplied. You must write a short formal email in Russian (about 100–120 words) to a host family, confirming your arrival and asking two questions. The task specifies: greet appropriately, state your arrival date and time, ask (a) whether you should bring bedding and (b) how to get from the station, and close politely. You draft an opening: «Привет! Пишу тебе, чтобы сказать, что я приезжаю…» You then consider «Здравствуйте! Пишу вам, чтобы сообщить, что я приезжаю…» You have 25 minutes and must also check case endings after «приезжаю» and after «добраться». The marking criteria reward both communicative adequacy and accuracy, and penalise register inconsistency more heavily than a single case error.
1. Which opening should you keep, and why does the choice matter under the stated marking criteria?
Read the worked answer
Keep: «Здравствуйте! Пишу вам, чтобы сообщить, что я приезжаю…»
Reasons:
- The recipient is a host family you have not met; the task calls for a formal email. «Здравствуйте» + «вам» is consistent with that.
- «Привет! … тебе» sets an informal frame. If the rest of the email then uses «Вы», the register becomes inconsistent - and the criteria penalise inconsistency more heavily than one case error.
- «сообщить» is neutral-formal and fits the purpose (conveying information); «сказать» is acceptable but slightly less formal.
Strategy note: because register inconsistency is the costlier fault, spend the first minute fixing the frame (salutation, pronoun, sign-off) and keep it uniform. Then spend remaining time on case endings, which cost less per error.
2. The two questions must be asked politely. Draft them and explain the grammatical choices that make them polite and correct.
Read the worked answer
Model questions:
- «Скажите, пожалуйста, нужно ли привезти с собой постельное бельё?»
- «Не могли бы вы подсказать, как лучше добраться от вокзала до вашего дома?»
Why these work:
- Imperative + «пожалуйста» («Скажите, пожалуйста») is the standard polite request frame; it softens the directness without becoming informal.
- «нужно ли» introduces an indirect yes/no question; «ли» follows the word it focuses and removes the need for a question mark inside the clause.
- «Не могли бы вы…» is a conventional polite conditional; it is more deferential than «Можете…?» and suits a first contact.
- «добраться от вокзала до вашего дома» - «добраться» governs «до» + genitive for the destination and «от» + genitive for the origin. Check both endings: «от вокзала», «до дома».
- Keep «вы/ваш» lowercase consistently unless the whole letter capitalises it; consistency matters more than the choice.