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Letter to a Host family 2014/7/20 01:17
Hello all!

I'm writing a letter to a possible future Host Family (via WWOOFjapan). Even though they seem to be able to speak English rather well, I decided to write the letter both in English and Japanese as I've been learning the latter for about three years, you know, just to show that I can communicate in Japanese too.

Now, as I have never written this kind of message to anyone, there are some parts that I need help with. The English part is all good, so all these questions are about how to express X in Japanese.

1. Addressing the Host and their family? The only one that came to my mind is ホースト様. I do not know their name.

2. Talking about the Host's 'place'. As in 'I would be happy to work/help/stay at your business/house/place'. I don't know whether I should be talking about their home or their business.
To clarify, I'm going to stay at their home, and the work part is mostly helping at the farm, housework, making food etc. The whole experience is supposed to be more about the stay and being a part of the family, not so much about the working itself (or that's how I've been told) so talking about their business or company seems a bit awkward to me.

3. This one is difficult for me even in English!
In my first letter I am supposed to tell when does my travel take place and for how long does it last. So what I want to say is that I can stay up to three months somewhere between September 2014 and March 2015. My ideal time of travel would be from November 1st till January 20th but the date can be changed (as long as it's during Sept-Mar) if it's not fine for the Host for any reason. If there is any simple way to put this in Japanese, that would be great!

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you for reading!
by ojimak  

Re: Letter to a Host family 2014/7/20 11:26
1. ホストファミリーの皆様 (to everyone at the host family) would be appropriate.

2. As it is considered "home stay," I would use "home," not "business."

3. Would you want to give it a try in Japanese? I'd be happy to edit and explain (so will others here too) :)
by AK rate this post as useful

Re: Letter to a Host family 2014/7/20 19:16
Thank you AK! Sure I'll give it a try.

10月から3月まで暇で、3ヶ月ぐらいのホームステイするつもりです。
11月1日と1月20日の間にホームステイしてほしいけど、ほかの日も良い。

How does that look? What would you change/add/remove?
by ojimak rate this post as useful

Re: Letter to a Host family 2014/7/20 19:27
10月から3月の間、時間があるので、できたら3ヶ月ぐらいのホームステイがしたいです。。
- "hima na node" sounds a bit like "Oh I've got nothing better to do..." lol, so I changed it to "I have time..."
- I've added "dekitara" (if possible) to the second part.
- Changed the "...suru tsumori desu" to "...ga shitai desu" also because "...suru tsumori desu" sounds like quite a strong intention that it doesn't give them room to say yes or no :)

11月1日と1月20日の間にホームステイできたら いちばん いいですが、ほかの期間でも だいじょうぶです。

- "home stay shite hoshii" means "I want you to do a home stay," so I changed that part.
- Also, I changed it to say "It would be best if I could do home stay between..."
- Also "hoka no hi" says "another day," so I changed "hi" to "kikan" (time period), and "yoi" is a bit blunt, so I changed it to "daijoubu desu" (will be alright with me).
by AK rate this post as useful

Re: Letter to a Host family 2014/7/20 20:03
Ooh, thank you so much! Looks like I need to work on how not to sound so harsh, lol. :)

I like how you explained _why_ X is better than Y too. That's exactly the kind of help I was looking for, cheers!
by ojimak rate this post as useful

Re: Letter to a Host family 2014/7/21 09:13
Well, letters to host families also serve to inform them of your Japanese language capacity, so I wanted to make sure whatever alternatives I offer (and the reasons behind them) are understood by you :)
by AK rate this post as useful

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