The Landlord Email That Is Too Direct
A university student in Taipei is drafting a 120–150-character email to her landlord, an older woman she has met only once. The water heater in the student's rented room stopped producing hot water on Tuesday night. The lease says the landlord is responsible for repairs, but non-emergency repairs require written notice and the tenant's access permission. The student has a midterm Thursday morning and wants to sound polite but not stiff. Her draft reads: '房东，热水器坏了。你明天叫人来修。我明天上午有考试，不在家。你最好下午来。' The landlord has not yet replied to the first message. The teacher has one class period to help the student revise before she sends it. The class has been working on formal and informal registers, honorifics, and the difference between stating a problem and making a request.
1. Identify two weaknesses in the draft as interpersonal writing and propose a revision that preserves the student's meaning.
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Two weaknesses stand out. First, the register is too blunt for an older landlord the student has met once: '你明天叫人来修' is a bare imperative, and '你最好下午来' can sound like a warning or a demand rather than a request. Second, the draft states the problem but does not complete the interpersonal task: it lacks a greeting, a brief apology for the inconvenience, the symptom and onset time, a clear access window, a contact number, and a closing. A revision could read: '王阿姨，您好。不好意思打扰您，我房间的热水器从周二晚上开始没有热水。您方便的话，能不能请师傅周四下午来看看？我上午有考试，下午两点以后在家。麻烦您提前告诉我大概几点到，谢谢您。' This keeps the same facts but adds '您好', '不好意思', '您方便的话', '能不能', '麻烦您', and '谢谢您'. The request is still clear, but it gives the landlord room to respond and makes access practical.
2. The student asks whether to use 你 or 您. What would you advise, and why?
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Use 您 here. The landlord is older, the student has met her only once, and the relationship is a service/lease relationship in which deference is safe. Even if the landlord uses 你 with the student, the student's use of 您 is unlikely to be wrong; it signals respect without being excessively formal in a routine email. Consistency matters: mixing 你 and 您 in the same short message looks careless. Also avoid the common overcorrection '您们'; if addressing a couple, use '您二位' or '叔叔阿姨'. The choice is not just a vocabulary item - it is a relational decision. In this context, 您 supports the politeness needed to make a repair request without sounding accusatory.