Tipps + Grammatikcheck Host Family Letter

Hey,

nach dem ich nun endlich meinen Gastfamilienbrief fertig habe (und leider immer noch total unsicher bin), wollte ich fragen, ob ihr mir eure Meinung, Verbesserungsvorschläge geben und Grammatik/Vokabelchecks machen könnt.
Das wäre echt ultra lieb von euch.

Lg, Karlotta

Dear Host Family,

first of all I want to thank you for reading this letter and for considering to take me in as a new family member. This exchange year means a lot to me so I’m glad that I have the opportunity to tell you something about me.

My name is Karlotta, I’m 15 years old (although I’m going to be 16 when I come to England) and I’m from Gemany, more precisely from Trier - the oldest town of Germany! It’s a small town in a valley next to the Moselle with many old roman attractions like the Porta Nigra or the Kaiserthermen. We’ve got many tourist form France and Luxembourg because their borders are really close.
I live together with my parents and our cat Kasanova in a flat near the city centre. That means I can easily go everywhere by foot, also to school.
My school is called Humboldt Gymnasium Trier and is known for their bilingual german-french branch. Students who choose this branch get a stronger education in french, they’ll have, added to the normal French classes, Geography in Year 7 and 8 and History in Year 9 and 10 in french. They also have the possibility to do the french baccalauréat next to the normal german Abitur (our graduation). Although I am in this branch, I never was a big fan of the french language and instead German and English became my favourite subjects. Now I’m in 10th grade and it’s my last year with my class, next year we’ll be in senior classes - it’s like Sixth Form just with more rules about choosing your subjects. Therefore, as a class representative, I have to organise all the 10th grade traditions like a final school trip as class or designing a class jumper which is a lot of fun.

Let’s come to my family, above all my cute little cat Kasanova. He is now about 6 years old and really lives up to his name, all my friends are in love with him.
I have two sisters, Hannah (21) and Katharina (22), however they don’t live at home anymore. Kati still lives in Trier, but she shares now a flat with a friend, and studies social pedagogy in Luxembourg. Hannah is since one and a half year in Australia and will stay there till summer. She’s there with a program called ‚Work&Travel‘.
My mum, Martina, is 50 years old and works as supervisor of two homes for disabled people in Luxembourg. Since I’m little I have been visiting these homes on special occasions and also started helping out on festivals with face painting. It’s strangely exhausting because there are so many kids, but it’s also a lot of fun. My dad, Hans, is 56 years old and works in a restaurants called Oechsle, a fish and vine restaurant. He has a responsible function though works also as waiter and vine adviser, what means that he presents different vines and tells you what makes them special and helps you to find a good vine.
My mum is working full time and my dad works in different shifts what means that I’m often alone after school till my mum comes in the evening. Though that’s no problem for me. I can cook myself some lunch or sometimes also supper and after school I’ll do my homeworks, go to my after school activities like the Drama and Singing, I’m babysitting nearly every Monday and also give private lessons in German. Often I also go to the cinema with my mum (mostly in english films with german subtitles) and we are also visiting the Berlinale (german film festival) every year. I also spend a lot of time with my friends. They are called Rebecka, Malou, Anna, Alina, Leontien and Tara. Malou and Rebecka are swedish and Malou actually moved back to Stockholm last year but we still skype every Monday. My best friend, Rebecka, was the one who gave me the idea to do an exchange year given that she does one herself but she goes to the USA. I love spending time with them, we really have much fun together like when we are having sleepovers together.

Drama is - obviously - my major hobby but there also other things I do. I’m in the Musicalschool Trier, where I have singing lessons, alone and in group and also acting lessons next to my normal Drama group. I’m also doing a Cambridge Certificate to improve my english and have therefore practice lessons. Honestly I’m not an athletic person although I visited a training centre before it became too much and I also like yoga and swimming. I’m kind of a bookworm, reading everything from my favourite book Harry Potter to a classic novel like Wuthering Heights to a fan fiction in the Internet. I also like writing myself but I don’t have much time for it.
Painting is also something I like though I just do it for fun because I think I’m not that good in it. Lately I became interested in graphic design but I didn’t had the chance to go deeper in it yet. My taste in music is really diversified. I like rock bands like 30 Seconds to Mars or My Chemical Romance but also more quiet bands like Snow Patrol and One Republic. It’s more likely that I just like one song of a band but not the others. I also have to admit I’m quiet a serien junkie, starting with Supernatural, Sherlock, Vampire Diaries and of course Doctor Who.
This show is actually the beginning of my fascination with Great Britain. Anna showed me the first episode of it and I immediately grew to love it. My fascination for London and later the whole country started. However I wanted to her the real voices and it was so much better in english that I now wanted to improve my english the best I could - an exchange year!

I’m a pretty big dreamer so I want to thank you again so much for reading this letter, taking me in to show me your country, culture and lifestyle and giving me the chance to let one of my greatest dreams come true.

Best regards,
Karlotta

PS: Ich bin mir auch ziemlich unsicher über die Grußformel - was würdet ihr mir empfehlen?