The Birthday Email: Five Content Points in Sixty Words
Anna is writing the 60-word email in the Junior Cycle German written section. The task: You are staying with a German host family. Your host sister Paula has invited you to her birthday party on Saturday at 19:00, but you have a football match at 15:00 and your team is travelling by bus to another town. Write an email in German: thank her, decline, give the reason, apologise, and suggest another day. Anna's draft reads: 'Liebe Paula, danke für die Einladung. Ich kann leider nicht kommen, weil ich habe ein Fußballspiel. Ich will nicht so spät kommen. Ich muss am Samstag mit meiner Mannschaft fahren. Entschuldigung. Ich kann am Sonntag kommen. Anna.' She has 5 minutes left and is worried about grammar. She has written 45 words and has not mentioned the time of the match or asked whether Sunday suits Paula.
1. Rewrite Anna's email so that it meets all five content points in about 60 words. Keep her voice and do not add information she does not have.
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Liebe Paula, vielen Dank für die Einladung! Leider kann ich am Samstag nicht kommen, weil ich um 15 Uhr ein Fußballspiel habe und mit meiner Mannschaft in eine andere Stadt fahre. Es tut mir sehr leid. Könnten wir uns am Sonntag treffen? Passt dir das? Viele Grüße Anna
Content check: thanks ('vielen Dank'), decline ('leider kann ich nicht kommen'), reason with the missing detail ('um 15 Uhr ... Fußballspiel' and travel), apology ('Es tut mir sehr leid'), alternative as a real question ('Könnten wir ...? Passt dir das?'). The register is consistently 'du'/'dir', appropriate for a host sister. The subordinate clause after 'weil' puts the finite verb 'habe' at the end. The word count stays close to the limit because the added time and question replace vague phrases such as 'Ich will nicht so spät kommen'.
2. Identify the two most serious language problems in Anna's draft and explain the rule behind each.
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1. Verb position after 'weil': 'weil ich habe ein Fußballspiel' is the classic subordinate-clause error. In a 'weil' clause the finite verb moves to the end: 'weil ich ein Fußballspiel habe'. The same applies to 'dass', 'obwohl' and 'wenn' clauses. This is serious because it recurs in every reason Anna gives.
2. 'Ich will nicht so spät kommen': 'wollen' expresses strong intention or refusal and can sound blunt or even rude to a host family. Anna means that she cannot come so late because of the match and travel. 'Ich kann nicht so spät kommen' or 'Es wird leider zu spät' is accurate and polite. The modal 'können' describes circumstances; 'wollen' describes unwillingness.
A third, smaller issue is that 'Ich kann am Sonntag kommen' is a statement, not a suggestion. Turning it into 'Könnten wir uns am Sonntag treffen?' repairs both the tone and the missing content point.
3. Anna has five minutes. Should she spend them on grammar or content? Justify your answer with reference to how the written task is marked.
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She should spend the first three minutes on content, then two on grammar that blocks meaning. The task is marked for communication of the five specified points as well as language. A grammatically neat email that omits the time, the apology or the question about Sunday loses content marks that cannot be recovered by correct endings. Adding 'um 15 Uhr' and 'Passt dir das?' is therefore the highest-value edit.
Within the grammar check, she should prioritise high-frequency, meaning-bearing errors: the verb at the end of the 'weil' clause, the modal 'kann' instead of 'will', and the correct greeting/closing. She should not spend the last two minutes rewriting vocabulary she already controls. A useful order is: add missing content, fix verb position, check the greeting and closing, count words. This matches the way short written tasks reward successful communication first and accuracy second.