Email misunderstandings

I love having Japanese email friends, but language is often a worry. Their English is very good, but I often worry, when I send emails, about whether they might misunderstand certain things I say, because I struggle to find a clear way to say things. I worry that sometimes they get the wrong end of the stick, sometimes mistaking compiments for insults. A lot of things are lost in translation. Anyone else worry about these things?

Yes; I sometimes check meanings of words that I know well in the dictionary (e.g. m-w.com) because my friends might not know that word and check the meaning too.

Sometimes it's surprising how my meaning is 3rd or 4th after some more common definition which was not what I wanted to say.

I guess a lot of the vocabulary you pick up as a child is not necessarily the formal definition but some approximation.

If you need to say something important or serious break it down into simple short sentences, like bullet points on a slide.