Materi Bahasa Inggris SMA/SMK Kurikulum 2013 Kelas 12 Personal Letter

WHAT IS A PERSONAL LETTER?

That’s right, it is a letter which is sent by a person to another. Perhaps, in case of family, friendship or make friend through pen pal.

To start with, let give you an example of a letter cited from www.letters.org below. Supposed you’re one of the persons in the letter. You may pretend as the sender or addressee. Read deeply and just try to present in every sing word of the sentences.

AN EXAMPLE OF PERSONAL LETTER

Dear Fatima,

I hope this letter finds all of you in the best of health and spirits. All of us are also doing fine here. It has been a very long time since we met or wrote to each other. So I thought of penning down a few lines to check things with you.

We just got back from our vacation to Malang and had a great time. We went to Bromo and Kota Batu. Amazing must see places. If you happen to ever plan a holiday to that side of the world do let me know and I shall give you tips on sight-seeing, culinary, etc.

I want to share something that is disturbing me these days. Mom has not been keeping good health and I am really worried for her. Sometimes I see bad dreams about mom and they wake me up in the middle of the night. I am sure you know what bad dreams I am talking about. Please don’t share this with anybody and I know I can trust you on this.

Anyways you say what is up with you and how is work? I can see that it is keeping you really busy, as I haven’t heard from you at all.

Give my love to your mom and dad and loads of love to you too.

Stay in touch and do write!

Take care

Love,

Aleena

Adapted from:http://www.letters.org/friendship-letter/friendship-letter.html

If you think it’s not enough to read ONCE just make it TWICE and you can also do it THREE TIMES.

THE CHARACTERISTICS

After you finish reading the letter above. Let me ask you. What is the relationship between Fatima and Aleena? Are they family, friends or something else? 

Perfect! They are friends. 

Now, imagine you’re chatting with your friends in front of the class. What style of language you’re using? Is it similar to that of when you’re talking to your teacher? Well, I don’t think so. This matter is called tone.

We use different tone of language based on the situation. Just like in this letter, Aleena (as the sender) uses informal language when expressing his feeling to Fatima (as the addressee) because their relationship is friend. It is the characteristics of a personal letter.

THE STRUCTURE

1. Date : It tells when the letter is written
2. Addressee: It is about to whom the letter is sent.
3. Greetings: It shows how deep your relation such as. The most frequently used is “Dear”
4. Main Content: It deals with “What is the letter about?” Example: personal news.
5. Complementary close: The sender thinks that his writing so far is enough. In this section, the writer often has some best wishes and hopes the addressee replies it.
6. Sender: It shows the sender’s name and perhaps his signature.

CONCLUSION

A personal letter is written for personal or private relationship between or among people and it doesn’t use a formal language.