Wie findet ihr meinen "Dear Host Family Letter"???

Dear Host Family,

How are you? I am very glad to write this letter to you.
My name is Luise Böhme and I am a 19-years-old young woman.
I live in xxxxxxx which is a village in the middle of Germany and circa two hours from the German capital, Berlin.
Here I live together with my mother, her partner and my younger sister but I have great contact to my father, too. My elder sister does not live with me anymore.
She has studied and is seeking for an employment at the moment.
My father works as a civil engineer and my mother is a bank employee.
Two dogs, a cat and some fish live with us. One of the dogs is mine and I really like to care for it. So you can see that I would have nothing against any pet you may have.
Beside caring for my dog I do other housework, i.e. tidying up and cleaning our home, sometimes cooking and washing clothes. I´m willing to do some housework at yours, too.

Now, I want to tell you more about me and my personality.
I am an open-minded, out-comming, active, nice and responsible person. Because I am easy-going I can deal with new situations and you would have no problems with me.
In my freetime I am interested in jogging, bicycling, skiing and taking my dog for a walk. Bacause I am very creative I like to do handicrafts and artworks. In the past I learned to play the guitar (but there is nearly nothing left), I was in a design/graphic arts course and I did horseback-riding.
This year I will pass my exams. My school is called Dr.-Frank-Gymnasium which has its own webside. If you want you can look at dr-frank-gymnasium.de. I am a good and ambitious student and my english grades are well.
After passing my exams I want to make new experiences. Therefore I want to go to the USA as an au pair.

Why I want to be an au pair? The answer is easy. I love kids. I like to care for them, to play with them, to educate them and to get everything back by their affection to me.
I think the au pair job is the best opportunity to learn everything about an American family and how an American lives like because as an au pair you are a part of the family and you are integrated in every step of the family´s life.
I do think that I have good references for this job because of my personality and my childcare experience. In the past I made training in two kindergarten and I did babysitting. At the kindergarten I worked with kids at the age of 0,5 to 10. Despite children have such different characters (sometimes aggressive, shy or pretty lively) I can handle with nearly every child.
I have experiences with meal preparation, bathing and putting children to bed for children under 2 years up to 6 years. I also prepared baby bottles and of course I played with them and occupied them.
Because I have a 4-years-old sister I could go through this child´s period of life very detailed. In my vacations I was for one week at each of my two cousins´ family. So I was with their children the whole day a whole week and we had a great time together (going into the zoo, doing promenades etc.). One of the cousins got a 7-months-old baby and the other one got a 9-months-old baby, a 5-years-old son and a 7-years old daughter. I got on with each other very well.
Sometimes I also do babysitting in my village, i.e. I care about a 4-years-old girl two times per month.
To put all in a nut shell I have experiences with kids who are from 0,5 to 10 years old and my total hours are circa 420.

During the au pair year I expect to learn about the American culture, to work with children by caring of them, educating them, playing and laghing with them and I also want to deepen my English.
Beside the plan of being an au pair I have the big dream to work for a family which lives in Los Angeles. I know that the place should be less important than the family but if it is possible I really like to come to a nice L.A. family. My wish to get a job there is because of my great affection to this city. I think it is one of the best cities in the world and I want to get to know L.A. in this year (especially its popularity and beauty, what living in the city is like, the behavior and culture of the people living there). (I also like the climate.)

My goals for the future are to pass the exams, to get a lovely family in Los Angeles and to be welcome. After the year I want to study psychology and to specialize in children´s psychology. For this the trip abroad would have a very positive effect in case of working with children and deepen my English.

All in all I can say that I´m very excited to make this great experience in my life and I hope that all my plans/dreams will become true.

Finally I want to wish you a very good day and I hope we will see each other.

Yours,

Luise

→ Ich bin sehr offen für Verbesserungsvorschläge und eventuelle Ideen, wie ich mich einer in Los Angeles lebenden Familie „schmackhaft machen kann“

Hallo Luise,
der Brief ist dir echt gelungen! Aber wieso willst du unbedingt nach L.A.? Die Chancen, dass du dahin kommst, sind ja eher gering und wie man so schön sagt, es kann überall schön sein, es kommt nur drauf an, was du drauß machst. Was machst du denn, wenn die Familie z.B. wirklich im Mittelwesten wohnt, und dann deinen Brief liest und merkt, dass du da nicht hinmöchtest. Überleg dir also, ob du die Passage über L.A. wirklich stehen lassen möchtest.

Jetzt ein paar Verbesserungen:

My name is Luise Böhme and I am a 19-year(s)-old young woman.
I live in xxxxxxx which is a village in the middle of Germany and circa two hours from the German capital, Berlin.
Here I live together with my mother, her partner and my younger sister but I have great contact to my father, too. My elder sister does not live with me (besser us) anymore.
She has studied and is looking for an employment at the moment.
My father works as a civil engineer and my mother is a bank employee.
Two dogs, a cat and some fish live with us. One of the dogs is mine and I really like to care for it. So you can see that I would have nothing against any pet you may have. (dagegen kannst du eh nichts machen… es ist ja schliesslich die Familie, die die Haustiere schon hat).
Beside caring for my dog I do other housework, i.e. tidying up and cleaning our home, sometimes cooking and washing clothes. I´m willing to do some housework at yours, too. (und das musst du i.d.R. sogar machen, denn sie nehmen dich für so was auch auf und deine Sachen musst du ja wahrscheinlich eh selbst waschen).

Now, I want to tell you more about me and my personality.
I am an open-minded, out-comming, active, nice and responsible person. Because I am easy-going I can deal with new situations (easily), you would have no problems with me.
In my freetime I am interested in jogging, (bi)cycling, skiing and taking my dog for a walk. Bacause I am very creative I like to do handicrafts and artworks. In the past I learned to play the guitar (but there is nearly nothing left), I was in a design/graphic arts course and I did horseback-riding.
(I’m in grade 13 and) This year I will pass my (final) exams. My school is called Dr.-Frank-Gymnasium which has its own webside. If you want you can look at dr-frank-gymnasium.de. I am a good and ambitious student and my english grades are well.
After passing my exams I want to make new experiences. Therefore I want to go to the USA as an au pair.

Why I want to be an au pair? The answer is easy. I love kids. I like to care for them, to play with them, to educate them and to get everything back by their affection to me.
I think the au pair job is the best opportunity to learn everything about an American family and how an American lives like because as an au pair you are a part of the family and you are integrated in every step of the family´s life (genau deswegen würde ich diese Sache mit dem 'willig to do some housework weglassen).
I do think that I have good references for this job because of my personality and my childcare experience. In the past I made training (meinst du ein Praktikum?, dann würde ich sagen, dass du da für einige Wochen gearbeitet hast) in two kindergarten and I did babysitting. At the kindergarten I worked with kids at the age of 0,5 to 10. Despite children have such different characters (sometimes aggressive, shy or pretty lively) I can handle with nearly every child.
I have experiences with meal preparation, bathing and putting children to bed for children under 2 years up to 6 years. I also prepared baby bottles and of course I played with them and occupied them.
Because I have a 4-years-old sister I could go through this child´s period of life very detailed. (In my vacations I was for one week at each of my two cousins´ family. So I was with their children the whole day a whole week and we had a great time together (going into the zoo, doing promenades etc.). One of the cousins got a 7-months-old baby and the other one got a 9-months-old baby, a 5-years-old son and a 7-years old daughter. I got on with each other very well).
Sometimes I also do babysitting in my village, i.e. I care about a 4-years-old girl two times per month.
To put all in a nut shell I have experiences with kids who are from 0,5 to 10 years old and my total hours are circa 420.

During the au pair year I expect to learn (more) about the American culture, to work with children by caring for them, educating them, playing and laughing with them and I also want to deepen my English.
Beside the plan of being an au pair I have the big dream to work for a family which lives in Los Angeles. I know that the place should be less important than the family but if it is possible I really like to come to a nice L.A. family. My wish to get a job there is because of my great affection to this city. I think it is one of the best cities in the world and I want to get to know L.A. in this year (especially its popularity and beauty, what living in the city is like, the behavior and culture of the people living there). (I also like the climate.)

Darüber solltest du dir nochmal Gedanken machen, denn das könnte die potentielle Hostfam abschrecken.

My goals for the future are to pass the exams, to get a lovely family in Los Angeles and to be welcome. After the year I want to study psychology and to specialize in children´s psychology. For this the trip abroad would have a very positive effect in case of working with children and deepen my English.

All in all I can say that I´m very excited to make this great experience in my life and I hope that all my plans/dreams will become true.

Finally I want to wish you a very nice day and I hope we will see each other.

Yours (sincerely)

Luise

LG Becky

„Darüber solltest du dir nochmal Gedanken machen, denn das könnte die potentielle Hostfam abschrecken.“

Meintest du den nachträglichen Satz mit meinen Zielen oder das mit L.A.?

Vielen Dank für deine Antwort!!!

Ja, genau das meinte ich ^^

Beides? oder meine Ziele? oder die Sache mit L.A.?
Entschuldige, dass ichs immer noch nich verstanden hab!

Hallo!
Ich meine das mit L.A… Deine Ziele sind ja gut, denn dann weiß die Fam, was du machen möchtest. :slight_smile:
LG

Aso, ja das hab ich mir auch nochmal überlegt.
Danke schön nochmal für deine Bemerkungen/Hilfe usw!

Hallo Luise,
Die Korrektur kommt vielleicht etwas spät, aber vielleicht ja doch noch rechtzeitig: es muss heißen „a family who (!) lives in Los Angeles“.

Viele Grüße, Thomas Bracht

Hallo Luise,
Ich lege gleich noch mal nach:

„two hours from the German capital, Berlin“: für den Leser wird nicht klar, ob die „two hours“ sich auf die Reise mit dem Auto, der Bahn, mit dem Flugzeug (für Amerikaner nicht ungewöhnlich!) oder zu Fuß beziehen. Besser: mach eine Entfernungsangabe (am besten in Meilen).

„to deepen my English“ ist eine Wort-für Wort-Übersetzung aus dem Deutschen, die im Englischen nicht verstanden wird; besser: to improve oder to enhance my English.

Den Satz „Beside the plan of being an au pair …“ würde beim Wort genommen bedeuten, dass Du einerseits als Au-Pair arbeiten möchtes und nebenher (beside!) noch für eine Familie in Los Angeles. Wahrscheinlich meinst Du aber, dass Du als Au-Pair für eine Famile in Los Angeles arbeiten möchtest. Der Satz sollte dann aber auch so formuliert sein, also etwa so: „I would like to spend my au-pair-year in a family who lives in Los Angeles.“

Im übrigen teile ich die Ansicht meiner Tochter Rebekka, dass Du Dich nicht auf eine Stadt festlegen solltest. Wie Du selbst schreibst, willst Du die amerikanische Kultur kennenlernen. Los Angeles mag eine interessante Stadt sein (ich finde, es gibt interessantere), aber die amerikanische Kultur lernt man eher in den ländlichen Regionen kennen. Du streichst Deinen Wunsch, L.A. kenenzulernen so sehr heraus, dass der Eindruck, das Au-Pair-Jahr sei lediglich Mittel zum Zweck. Rebekka hat recht: das ist abschreckend.

Viele Grüße, Thomas Bracht