Cancelling a Weekend: Two Messages, Two Registers
The Expression écrite section offers a choice. A candidate chooses this task: 'You are unwell and cannot spend the weekend with your French host family, the Duponts, in Lyon. Write a formal message to Mme Dupont (60–80 words) to cancel, apologise, explain, and propose another date. Then write a short message (40–60 words) to your French friend Léa, the Duponts' daughter, with the same news.' The candidate has 25 minutes.
The first draft to Mme Dupont begins: «Salut Madame, Je suis vraiment désolé, mais je ne peux pas venir ce week-end. J'ai de la fièvre. On peut reporter à la semaine prochaine ? Bisous, Ravi.»
The candidate is male, 17, and has learned that French friends use tu but is unsure about adults. The rubric awards marks for register, formula, content points, and grammatical accuracy.
1. Identify the register errors in the draft to Mme Dupont and rewrite the opening and closing correctly. Explain why each change is required.
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Errors and fixes:
- «Salut Madame» mixes an informal greeting with a formal title. To an adult host mother, use «Madame,» or «Chère Madame,» on its own line. Salut belongs with tu and friends.
- «On peut reporter… ?» is too casual for a formal message. Use «Pourrions-nous reporter notre visite à la semaine prochaine ?» or «Serait-il possible de reporter… ?» The conditional softens the request.
- «Bisous» is far too intimate for Mme Dupont. Close with «Cordialement,» or «Bien cordialement,»; a fuller formal closing would be «Je vous prie d'agréer, Madame, mes salutations distinguées.»
- The pronoun system must be consistent: vous, not tu or on, throughout.
Model opening and closing: « Madame, Je suis désolé de vous prévenir si tard… Pourrions-nous reporter notre visite à la semaine prochaine ? Cordialement, Ravi »
Note that désolé is correctly masculine for Ravi; a female candidate would write désolée.
2. The candidate wants to reuse the sentence «J'ai de la fièvre» in both messages. Is that appropriate? What else must differ between the two messages, and why?
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«J'ai de la fièvre» can be reused: it is grammatically correct, neutral in register, and states the reason plainly. The difference lies in everything around it.
- To Mme Dupont: formal vous, a title, an explicit apology for the inconvenience, a concrete proposal for another date, and a polite closing. The purpose is to protect the relationship with an adult who has made arrangements.
- To Léa: informal tu, a warmer tone, and shared emotion such as «Je suis déçu de ne pas te voir» or «J'espère que ce n'est que partie remise». A friendly closing such as «À bientôt, Ravi» is appropriate; Bisous is possible between close friends but should not be copied into the adult message.
The content points overlap, but the relationship changes the pronouns, the formula, and the degree of explanation. Reusing the same sentence is not a register error; reusing the same frame would be.
3. A friend advises: 'Because the message to Mme Dupont is formal, you must use the passé simple.' Evaluate this advice.
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The advice is wrong. The passé simple is a literary narrative tense. It belongs in written stories, historical accounts, and some formal narrative prose, not in a short personal message cancelling a weekend visit. Using it here would produce an absurdly literary tone: Je fus malade instead of J'ai été malade or Je suis malade.
Formality in a message is created by:
- vouvoiement and titles (Madame);
- polite formulas (Je vous prie de m'excuser, Pourriez-vous);
- avoidance of slang and intimate closings;
- a clear, courteous structure.
The normal tenses remain the présent, passé composé, and futur proche or futur simple. A candidate who equates 'formal' with 'passé simple' is confusing literary register with social register, which is exactly the kind of judgment this task rewards.