The deposit email: politeness carried by grammar
Martine, 17, is doing a timed writing mock for her Intermediate French exam: 30 minutes, no dictionary, 120–140 words. The task is a formal email to her former landlord, M. Bertrand, asking for the return of a €450 deposit on a studio in Lyon that she vacated on 30 June, three weeks ago, after two unanswered emails and one phone call. The tone must stay polite but firm, with 'vous' throughout, and the brief requires at least one conditional and one subjunctive. Her draft opens 'Je veux que vous me rendez l'argent tout de suite', continues 'Je suis très fâchée contre vous', warns 'Vous devez répondre avant vendredi', and closes 'Bisous, Martine'. She is also unsure whether 'Je souhaiterais' or 'Je veux' is the safer opening, and whether the deposit should be called 'la caution' or 'le dépôt'. Her teacher has told the class that in French formal writing politeness is carried by grammar, not by sprinkling in 's'il vous plaît'.
1. Rewrite Martine's three problematic sentences into appropriate formal French, and explain what each change does to the register.
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1. 'Je veux que vous me rendez l'argent tout de suite.' Two separate faults. Vouloir que takes the subjunctive, so rendez must become rendiez. And je veux states a demand as a bare fact, which sounds like an order given to a subordinate. A formal claim opens in the conditional: Je souhaiterais que vous me remboursiez la somme de 450 € or Je vous serais reconnaissante de bien vouloir me restituer la somme de 450 €. The conditional does the work English does with 'I would be grateful if'.
2. 'Je suis très fâchée contre vous.' Grammatically fine, pragmatically damaging: it turns a claim into a personal accusation. Diplomacy shifts the blame onto the situation: Je suis au regret de constater que la somme n'a toujours pas été versée.
3. 'Vous devez répondre avant vendredi.' Devoir + infinitive is an instruction, not a request. Replace with a conditional request and a precise date: Je vous serais reconnaissante de me répondre avant le vendredi 21 juillet.
The pattern: conditional for the request, subjunctive after souhaiter que, impersonal constative for the complaint.
2. Explain why 'Bisous' is unacceptable here, and propose two closing formulae - one neutral, one firm - with a reason for each.
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'Bisous' belongs to the private, affective register used with family, friends and close colleagues; between a tenant and a landlord it breaks the vouvoiement contract that the whole letter has been building, and it undermines the seriousness of a claim for money. The examiner reads it as a register slip, not as friendliness.
Neutral: Je vous prie d'agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées. This is the standard administrative formula for someone you do not know well; it closes the letter without adding pressure.
Firm: Dans l'attente de votre réponse, je vous prie d'agréer, Monsieur, l'expression de mes salutations distinguées. The participial phrase Dans l'attente de votre réponse presupposes that a reply is coming and has a mildly pressing effect, while the formula itself stays impeccably polite.
A middle option is Cordialement, acceptable in email but too relaxed for a formal claim. Note also that the closing formula must agree with the opening: if she wrote Monsieur, she cannot end with salutations distinguées addressed to Madame.
3. 'La caution' or 'le dépôt'? Decide, and explain what the choice reveals about the difference between learning vocabulary lists and learning collocations.
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For rented housing the standard French term is le dépôt de garantie, commonly shortened to la caution in everyday use. Le dépôt alone is vague - it can mean a deposit of money in a bank, a filing, or sediment - and in a formal claim vagueness weakens the letter. The safest phrasing is le dépôt de garantie de 450 €, which is unambiguous and matches the wording a French landlord would recognise immediately.
The wider point is that a bilingual list giving 'deposit = dépôt' is not wrong but is insufficient: French divides the English word across dépôt de garantie, acompte (a partial payment in advance) and arrhes (a deposit that can be forfeited). Choosing correctly means knowing the collocation, not the gloss. In an exam, the collocation is what earns the mark; a literal gloss often produces a sentence that is grammatical but that no French landlord would write.