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Correction sample 1
Original:
Dear ***
Hello.
We are the members of a non-profit organization for the purpose of supporting
medical researchers in Japan. Currently we plan to start a new project to
create English study website for the medical researchers and medical school
students who study English as a second language. In order to create the website
that researchers are really interested in, we would like to use a part of the
speeches in your site as an English educational material. Would you give us
permission to use a part of them?
Corrections:
Dear ***
We are members of a non-profit organization for the purpose of supporting
medical researchers in Japan. Currently we plan to start a new project to
create an English study website for the medical
researchers and medical school students who study English as a second language.
In order to create a website that contains issues that researchers are really interested
in, we would like to use part of the speeches on your site as educational material. Weare requesting your permission to use them on our site.
Comments:
You wrote
a great beginning to this letter. You explained in a clear and organized way
what your company is and what you are seeking.
I changed
the way you requested permission. It is more common to phrase it as a request
rather than a question. An alternative sentence you could use, ‘We would
appreciate it if you would give us your permission to use them on our site’.
Original:
To be more specific, The website are open and all researchers can use the
educational contests
for free. On the website, we quote the speeches correctly and after that,
add some questions in
order for researchers to understand the speech contents profoundly. (E.g. what does the
speaker say is the important thing to do good research?) We state the speech
sources and
relevant year.
Corrections:
To be more specific,
the website will be open to all researchers who can use the
educational contents for free. On the website, we will
quote parts of the speeches without alteration following by some questions in
order for the researchers to better understand the contents
of the speech. For example, “What does
the speaker say is important in order to do good
research?” We will
acknowledge the source and year the speeches were given.
Comments:
Since the
website has not been released as yet, I would use the future tense and say
‘will be open’, and ‘we will quote’.
It isn’t
clear if the website is open to researchers only thereby requiring
registration, or that the website will be open to all who use the Internet. I changed it to say that it will be open to
all researchers.
I
exchanged the word ‘correctly’ for ‘without alteration’ to show that the
original speech will be used. ‘Correct’ might be interpreted as making no
errors rather than using the original.
In
addition to including the source, you could also provide a direct link to their
website.
Original:
A lot of researchers who are not native English speakers have enough research
capacity to be highly praised around the world. However， some of them are not
good at writing and reading English and this becomes the obstacle to carry out
their research. Creating the website, we hope to help these researchers and to
contribute to development of science.
Thank you very much
for your attention.
Corrections:
Many of the researchers
are not native English speakers but they have done research that is
highly praised around the world. However, some of them are not good at writing
and reading English and this has become an obstacle for them to
carry out their research. By creating this
website, we hope to help these researchers contribute to the development of science worldwide.
We
appreciate your serious consideration of our request.
Comments:
I have a
few questions to clarify the situation. Are some of the researchers native
English speakers? You say that a lot of them are not, so that would mean that
some are. If none of them are not native English speakers which means that they
grew up in a country where English is not the main language, but some of them
speak English as a second or third language then you can say, ‘Many of the
researchers do not speak English ~’. Are all the researchers Japanese? Then you
could say ‘Japanese researchers’.
When you
say, ‘have enough research capacity to be highly praised around the world’, have they released their research outside of Japan or their country? Or
doyou mean that their research should be praised but that they have not
released their research outside their own country or Japan because it is
not in English? If this is the case then I would change what I wrote to
‘but they have done
research that is highly praised here in Japan and should be shared with other countries.’
Another
question about ‘English being an obstacle in doing research’; do you mean that
because they cannot write their research in English, they cannot share it with
researchers in other countries?, or that in order to complete or carry out
their research, they need to read other published works that are written in
English?
It is best
to end a letter stating what kind of action you would like the person to take.
In this case, you want them to consider your request.
Notes:
This
letter shows that you already possess well developed writing skills. In
general, you have a good grasp on the correct grammar tense to use, though a
few corrections were required. You know how to link ideas together and write
complex sentence structures using appropriate word and phrase usage.
Correction sample 2
Original:
Dear Mr. Smith,
This is Hiroko Takahashi, project manager of ABC Inc., a production company in
Tokyo. Mr. Ito, President of B&W Planning, one of your clients, gave me
your name and e-mail address. I understand he asked for your approval of letting
me know your information in advance.
Corrections:
Dear Mr. Smith:
My name is Hiroko Takahashi, and I am
a project manager of ABC Inc., a production company in Tokyo. Mr. Ito, President
of B&W Planning and one of your clients, gave me your name and e-mail address. I understand
he asked for your approval before letting me know
your contact details in advance.
Comments:
Always use a colon following the name in a salutation of a
business letter. Commas are only for personal letters. This is
(name) is proper format over the phone, but it is not used in
letters. Since we have rephrased the first part as My name
is, you can no longer put your title behind it without making it
part of another phrase, since your title is not part of your name. I added a in front
of production manager, because I guess there is more
than one production manager in your company. If you are the only one, you may
delete a. I added and because
it implies more immediacy than a comma does, and since you are trying to recall
a relationship and base a new relationship on it, you want to have a stronger
sense of the relationship’s importance. Subtly, this does so. Before helps
emphasize that proper protocol was followed.
Information is vague and may cause Mr. Smith to wonder exactly what you
discussed with Mr. Ito. Contact details is more
specific and less a cause of concern.
Original:
I am writing to you because Mr. Ito told me that you are planning to revise
your company brochure. ABC Inc. has 10 years’ history of helping corporate
clients with sales tool production. So I am wondering if we can offer you
our professional service for the brochure. Especially I heard you are making
Chinese version, ABC could be suitable because our strength is multilingual
production and have a lot of experience of making Chinese sales tools.
Since we have a global network of professionals including Chinese, our
price is pretty competitive.
Corrections:
I am writing to you because Mr. Ito told me that you are planning to
revise your company brochure. ABC Inc. has a
ten-year history of helping corporate clients with the production
of sales tools. We’d like to take this opportunity to offer you our
professional service for your brochure needs. In
particular, since you are interested in reaching the Chinese market, ABC’s strength in multilingual
production and extensive experience in making Chinese
sales tools would be of use to you. Since we have a
global network of professionals including Chinese
partners, our price is rather competitive.
Comments:
It’s good that you mention your intentions and reasons for
writing immediately. You don’t want to waste the reader’s time in a business
letter. When a number and a noun combine to form an adjective, they are
hyphenated and oddly enough the noun becomes singular. Here are a few examples:
twelve-story building, nine-year-old boy. Production
together with both sales and tools was
confusing, so I restated it. I’m wondering is too
tentative and dreamy for a business letter. Try to sound confident and as
though you are doing them a service by making this offer. Especially
is never used to begin a sentence. Don’t say I’ve
heard because it sounds like you are indulging in gossip about
them. Suitable is too weak a word; use something like useful as
above. Pretty as an adverb is a bit juvenile and not
suited to formal writing. Do you have Chinese partners,
employees, native speakers working for you, in your home office or in China?
That is very unclear and you will have to correct it to make it a selling
point.
Original:
If possible I would like to visit your company to hear from you more details
and prepare an estimate. Please let me know your availability next week.
My schedule is open except Thursday.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Looking forward
to hearing from you soon.
Thank you.
Corrections:
If possible I would like to visit you at your company to familiarize
myself with your specific needs. After that, I will be able to prepare an
estimate. Please let me know your availability next week. My schedule is open
except for Thursday.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I’m looking forward to
hearing from you soon.
Thank you.
Sincerely.
Hiroko Takahashi
Comments:
I added you to make
this appeal more personal. I made the first sentence reflect more of the effort
you plan to make. The estimate is too quick and abrupt a reference to
your price, so I moved it to the next sentence. Try to emphasize your services
first, and mention the price quietly later, or not mention it at all at this
stage, now that you have already reassured the prospective client that your
fees are reasonable. Looking forward to is a
phrase used between close or casual contacts, and here you are asking for
business so you need a more formal tone. Therefore don’t abbreviate your
language.
Correction sample 3
Original whole essay:
January 27, 2003
Customer Service
Regent Hotel
Dear Sir:
I am writing to let you know that I am very unhappy with your clerical oversight. I am
a special member of the Global Alliance, which you belong to, and my membership
number is FJP100022. I stayed at your hotel for 4 nights from August 3, 2002 and 5
nights from January 12, 2003 as I heard we could get points three times as many
as usual if we stayed at the hotels belonging to the Global Alliance during the
campaign from April, 2002 to January, 2003. When I confirmed my points with the
Global Alliance the other day, it came out that the points that I was supposed to get
had not been added. According to the Global Alliance, they do not have any record
(register) to confirm my stay because I made the reservation through a travel
agency. Prior to the end of campaign, would you please check this with the Global
Alliance and let me know the findings as soon as possible?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Thank you very much in advance for your time,
Sincerely,
Sachiko Tanaka
CORRECTED:
Dear Sir;
I am writing to you, as I'm unhappy with your recent customer service.
I'm a Gold Member of the Global Alliance (of which you are a member) and my membership number is FJP100022. I have stayed at your hotel twice and I haven't been credited for either stay. The first stay was for four nights from August 3, 2002. The second stay was for five nights from January 12, 2003. The only reason I stayed at your hotel was there was a special campaign and I would be able to get triple the amount of points. When I called to confirm my points on __________, I discovered my account hasn't been credited with the points yet.
According to Global Alliance, they don't have any records to confirm my
stays because I made my reservation through a travel agency. As the campaign
ends this month, I would appreciate your immediate attention in dealing
with this problem.Please feel free to contact me (xxx) xxx-xxxx if you
have any further questions.Thanking you in advance for your help in dealing
with this matter.
Sincerely,
Sachiko Tanaka
NOTES:
I decided to put my notes at the end. Sometimes with letters I think it is better to see the whole corrected thing together. To start off, I don't think we would say we were unhappy with a clerical oversight in an English letter. Instead, we would focus on how unhappy we are with their customer service. Then we would go into the details of what we are unhappy about.
Because you are making a specific complaint about something you should say that you are a Gold Member and not a 'special member'. I know this seems like a small matter but it is the point of the letter. The sentence starting with "I stayed" is too long and contains too much information. It is better if you bring up the complaint first and then the supporting information.
In addition, the part regarding the points is a little confusing. Although I changed the English completely you could also say 'I could get three times as many points than usual in this campaign'. Although you could use the expression 'came out' it would be better to use 'I discovered' or 'I was told'.
You asked a question regarding record/register and you chose the correct word in that situation. When we are talking about if something has been recorded, then we use 'record'. 'Register' is usually used when talking about people as in 'Is his name in the register?' or 'Has he registered yet?'
One thing at the end of the letter is that I don't think you use strong enough language. It is hard to find a balance of being strong and polite at the same time. Please check my wording to see what I mean by this. I added an additional sentence about contacting you in case they have any questions. I think this gives them some more incentive.
Comments from teacher:
I think you did a good job. Unfortunately, I think you are writing a complaint letter Japanese style. It is funny to say this but I think you are being too nice in the letter. Like I mentioned in my notes one has to find a balance between being forceful and polite. Remember they haven't done something that you expected them to do. One of the things I would like you to focus on in the future is the length of your sentences. You are trying to put too much information in one sentence. The problem with this is makes the sentence too confusing. So please be careful in the future. Again I think you can get your message across but we need to work on the awkwardness.
******************************************************************************
和訳
私は貴ホテルが加入しているグローバル・アライアンスのゴールドメンバーで、会員番号はFJP100022です。
昨年4月から今年の1月末までのキャンペーン中にアライアンスに加入しているホテルを利用した場合、ゴールドメンバーは通常の3倍のサービスポイントを受けることができるということでしたので、私は昨年8月3日から4泊と今年の1月12日から5泊Regent
ホテルに泊まりました。しかし、アライアンスの事務局に確認したところポイントが加算されていませんでした。アライアンス事務局曰く、貴ホテルから私が泊まった記録が届いていないと言うのです。
上記2回の宿泊は旅行会社を通じて予約していますので、アライアンス事務局ではこの記録を確認することが出来ないとの事です。申し訳ございませんが、もうすぐキャンペーンが終わってしまいますので大至急御社よりこの件調査して頂き、アライアンス事務局へ連絡して頂けますでしょうか？そしてその結果を連絡願います。
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