Motivation letter

Question

Hi, guys! How are you doing? May I ask you to read my motivation letter as I am afraid I've made many mistakes and it isn't readable enough...Thank you very much!
University of Turku
December 9, 2012

Dear Sir or Madam,
With this letter I would like to introduce myself and express my immense interest in applying for the Erasmus Triple I program at XXX University for the winter term 2013. My career ambition is to become a researcher of issues concerning Comparative Linguistics.
I am a 3rd-year student at the Faculty of Philology of XXX University, Department of General Linguistics. More precisely, my specialization is Balkan Studies. So far, I study only two languages which belong to the Balkan Linguistics Area. These are Albanian and Modern Greek. Furthermore, I am going to study Bulgarian in addition to the above mentioned two since these three languages are included in one contact linguistic area. This will allow me to learn more about extensive similarities reflected in Balkan languages which belong to different branches of Indo-European language family. So, in the future I want to focus on studying a degree of grammatical similarity which is represented in the afore mentioned languages. This research is certain to go hand-in-hand with learning of Ancient languages. Therefore I feel great desire to follow the Combined Bachelor program (core subject: Historical Linguistics, secondary subject: Ancient Greek Studies) at Humboldt University because that allows me to combine both interests in improving my knowledge of Ancient Greek and studying the Comparative Linguistics.
When it comes to research work, I have been involved in several projects supported by Russian Academy of Sciences and concerning the areal linguistics and typology. One of these projects is dedicated to a problem of non-canonical actant marking. My main task was to translate a list of sentences from Russian into Albanian (by working with informants and using the Internet resources) and then to define and summarize particular language features. Having analyzed the intermediate results of that research I delivered a report on this theme at the International Philological Student Conference held in Saint-Petersburg (April 2012). My last term paper was on Actant Marking Strategy in Albanian. Also I am engaged in the project dedicated to “Contact zones of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Romania: linguistic and ethnocultural situation in transformation”. Within this project I perform the research of Albanian and Bulgarian dialects describing the system of pronouns in standard languages and their dialects (mainly I use the material I managed to collect during my fieldwork in Albania and the Ukraine 2011, 2012). The theme of my present term work is “Albanian labile verbs in the Balkan context”. As I have already told in the pervious paragraph while performing such kind of research it is indispensible to take into consideration an evolution of each particular language. Thus, contact linguistics is strongly connected with historical linguistics. This very reason pushed me to choose Humboldt University of Berlin as there I will be able to strengthen many different aspects of historical linguistics and also to learn German approach in studying this field of science.
So far, I had only excellent marks at the University. Also I took part in several Language Summer Schools organized by the University of Tirana and the University of Cyprus. As a result I got Diplomas in Albanian (C2 level) and Modern Greek (B2 level) languages. So, I am also eager to follow the course in Modern Greek at Humboldt University (as an extra curricular one). Besides the two afore mentioned languages and English I have basic knowledge of German and I want to improve it while studying in Germany.

Complementing my strong academic performance are my advanced skills in communication and leadership. First of all, I am keen on sailing. I am a member of the crew of the Russian frigate “Shtandart”. To my mind, it is not only a great kind of sport, but also a life changing experience, because at sea people face real life problems and learn how to solve them. Furthermore, members of the crew overcome their inner barriers by exchanging experiences and sharing their impressions. It definitely gives me a wonderful opportunity to communicate with people of different nationalities whose political and cultural beliefs vary greatly. There is no doubt that one may learn some language only through communication in a natural language environment. In addition, I am a secretary of the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Albania in Saint-Petersburg and the North-West part of Russia and I teach Albanian for graduate students whose specialization is Balkan Studies (at XXX University). I am fortunate to do all these activities as I see them connected all together. Due to this fact I am certain to deal with issues concerning intercultural understanding.
Given my past history of commitment to excellence, I am confident that I will show a high level of interest and enthusiasm to your program. I am sure to exceed your expectations and to pursue my dreams and ambitions. Furthermore, my international background will give diversity to the projects holding within your program.
Thank you for considering my application, and I look forward to your acceptance.
Sincerely yours,
Varvara

DMW · Accepted Answer

Hi Varya,
This is a fantastic and eloquent letter. There is very little wrong with it. There are some minor errors, and a few sentences where readability could be improved.

I'm a bit too tired to write detailed comments on the entire letter right now. I have written comments on just the first half. Tomorrow, I shall write comments on the second half. I hope you find these comments useful. All of them are suggestions only. To be honest, there's almost nothing that you absolutely need to change.

Good luck with the Erasmus Triple I programme. I hope you are admitted. From reading your letter, it certainly seems to me that you deserve to be. Your research record sounds both extremely impressive and profoundly fascinating.

Best wishes,
David.

University of Turku
December 9, 2012
Dear Sir or Madam,
With this letter I would like to introduce myself and express my immense interest

It's more common to write Dear Sir/Madam. That is, use a slash rather than the word "or". Delete the words "With this letter" - they don't really add anything.

in applying for the Erasmus Triple I program at *** University for the winter term 2013.

In British English, it's more common to write "programme" than "program", except in a few limited cases. I recommend checking the actual name of this programme - do the people who run the programme spell it with the extra "-me" or without? Find out, and make your use of the name match. Also, be careful with capitalisation - you may need a capital P if that's the name of the programme.

My career ambition is to become a researcher of issues concerning Comparative Linguistics.

The word "concerning" doesn't entirely fit. I would write "a researcher of issues in Comparative Linguistics", or better still, just "a researcher in Comparative Lingustics".

I am a 3rd-year student at the Faculty of Philology of *** University, Department of General Linguistics. More precisely, my specialization is Balkan Studies.

I would run those two sentences together. Like "... Department of General Lingustics, specialising in Balkan Studies". If you must have the second sentence, consider using the word "specialty" rather than "specialisation". Also, if you use the word "specialisation" or "specialising", please make a decision about British or American spelling. The university that you are applying to may have a preference for one or the other. If it's in USA, or if it's Oxford University, you should prefer the spelling with Z. If it's any other university in an English-speaking country, you should prefer the spelling with S. For universities in non-Anglophone countries, I don't know what advice to give.

So far, I study only two languages which belong to the Balkan Linguistics Area. These are Albanian and Modern Greek.

Either "I have only studied ... " or "I am only studying ...". The simple present doesn't quite make sense here.

Furthermore, I am going to study Bulgarian in addition to the above mentioned two since these three languages are included in one contact linguistic area. This will allow me to learn more about extensive similarities reflected in Balkan languages which belong to different branches of Indo-European language family. So, in the future I want to focus on studying a degree of grammatical similarity which is represented in the afore mentioned languages.

I would put a comma after "two" in the first sentence. The words "abovementioned" and "aforementioned" are both single words; and frankly, neither is a word that I would use. Can you just write "... in addition to these two, since ..." and "... these languages" instead of using these slightly awkward words?

You need to add "the" before "Indo-European". "So" is unnecessary at the head of the last sentence. Before "degree", "the" works better than "a", although I'm not sure whether "degree" is necessary at all. "Represented" sounds wrong. For me, the last sentence would be better if it just said "In the future, I want to focus on studying the grammatical similarity among these languages".

This research is certain to go hand-in-hand with learning of Ancient languages. Therefore I feel great desire to follow the Combined Bachelor program (core subject: Historical Linguistics, secondary subject: Ancient Greek Studies) at Humboldt University because that allows me to combine both interests in improving my knowledge of Ancient Greek and studying the Comparative Linguistics.

I would say either "... with the learning of ancient languages" or "... with learning ancient languages". That is, either add "the" or remove "of". Also consider using a lower case A for "ancient". Remove "the" before "Comparative Linguistics".

When it comes to research work, I have been involved in several projects supported by Russian Academy of Sciences and concerning the areal linguistics and typology.

Put "the" before "Russian Academy of Sciences". Remove "and" afterwards and use a comma instead. "Areal" is a slightly obscure word. Unless it's technical jargon, you might consider saying "regional" instead.

One of these projects is dedicated to a problem of non-canonical actant marking.

Consider replacing "is" with "was", to better match the previous sentence and the following sentence. Also, do you mean "a problem" or "the problem"?

My main task was to translate a list of sentences from Russian into Albanian (by working with informants and using the Internet resources) and then to define and summarize particular language features. Having analyzed the intermediate results of that research I delivered a report on this theme at the International Philological Student Conference held in Saint-Petersburg (April 2012).

You've listed two tasks, not just one. So better to say "My main tasks were". Also delete the word "then". Add a comma after "research". Also see my earlier comment about S and Z spellings (summarise, analysed).

My last term paper was on Actant Marking Strategy in Albanian. Also I am engaged in the project dedicated to “Contact zones of Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Romania: linguistic and ethnocultural situation in transformation”. Within this project I perform the research of Albanian and Bulgarian dialects describing the system of pronouns in standard languages and their dialects (mainly I use the material I managed to collect during my fieldwork in Albania and the Ukraine 2011, 2012).

In the second sentence, I would place a comma after "Also" and replace "the" with "a" before "project". In the third sentence, I would add a comma after "project" and a comma before "describing". The part in parentheses should be a sentence in its own right.

DMW · Answer

Hello Varya,
Here is the second installment of my edits to your letter. Please let me know whether my efforts have been helpful to you.

Again, good luck with your application. This university would be crazy not to accept you. I'm sure you will make a fabulous and worthwhile contribution to the field of Balkan linguistics; whether it's at this university or at some other.

Best wishes,
David

The theme of my present term work is “Albanian labile verbs in the Balkan context”. As I have already told in the pervious paragraph while performing such kind of research it is indispensible to take into consideration an evolution of each particular language.

I would start a new paragraph here. The paragraph that you wrote seems too long to me, and at this point, you have a wee bit of a change in topic. Watch the spelling of "previous". Also, it seems more natural to say "As I mentioned in the previous paragraph" or even "As I said in the previous paragraph". Of course, if you break the paragraph in half here, it's not the previous paragraph any more, so you could say "in an earlier paragraph" or even just "above". Also, you mean "the evolution", not "an evolution".

Thus, contact linguistics is strongly connected with historical linguistics. This very reason pushed me to choose Humboldt University of Berlin as there I will be able to strengthen many different aspects of historical linguistics and also to learn German approach in studying this field of science.

Put "the" in front of German. Also, you don't mean "strengthen many different aspects of historical linguistics", as this implies that you will be making linguistics itself stronger. Whereas that is undoubtedly the case, it's not the right thing to say in this type of letter. Please consider something like "I will be able to improve myself in many different aspects ..." instead.

So far, I had only excellent marks at the University.

Because "so far" means "up till now", it doesn't make sense to use it with the simple past. You should either write "So far, I have had ..." or just delete "so far" altogether. My preference is for the latter.

Also I took part in several Language Summer Schools organized by the University of Tirana and the University of Cyprus. As a result I got Diplomas in Albanian (C2 level) and Modern Greek (B2 level) languages. So, I am also eager to follow the course in Modern Greek at Humboldt University (as an extra curricular one).

I would put a comma after "Also" (first sentence) and after "As a result" (second sentence). I would remove the comma after "So" (third sentence). Earlier comment about S and Z. Lower case d for "diplomas". Delete the word "languages" at the end of the second sentence. Put a hyphen in "extra-curricular". Consider deleting the parentheses at the end of the third sentence, and just using a comma after "University" instead.

Besides the two afore mentioned languages and English I have basic knowledge of German and I want to improve it while studying in Germany.

"Aforementioned" is one word. I would put a comma after "English".

Complementing my strong academic performance are my advanced skills in communication and leadership. First of all, I am keen on sailing. I am a member of the crew of the Russian frigate “Shtandart”. To my mind, it is not only a great kind of sport, but also a life changing experience, because at sea people face real life problems and learn how to solve them.

I would delete "kind of". It is a great sport.

Furthermore, members of the crew overcome their inner barriers by exchanging experiences and sharing their impressions. It definitely gives me a wonderful opportunity to communicate with people of different nationalities whose political and cultural beliefs vary greatly. There is no doubt that one may learn some language only through communication in a natural language environment.

"Some language" sounds wrong to me. Could you say "some aspects of language" instead?

In addition, I am a secretary of the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Albania in Saint-Petersburg and the North-West part of Russia and I teach Albanian for graduate students whose specialization is Balkan Studies (at *** University).

I would begin a new paragraph here, for no other reason than that this is currently a very long paragraph, and this is a convenient break of topic. In English, "Saint Petersburg" is normally written without the hyphen (unlike in Russian). Use lower case for "north-west". Earlier comment about S and Z.

I am fortunate to do all these activities as I see them connected all together. Due to this fact I am certain to deal with issues concerning intercultural understanding. Given my past history of commitment to excellence, I am confident that I will show a high level of interest and enthusiasm to your program.

To me, "all connected together" would sound better than "connected all together". I can't explain why. Either put a comma after "fact", or delete the first four words of the second sentence, and add "therefore"; that is, you could write "I am therefore certain to deal with ... ". Change "enthusiasm to" to "enthusiasm in".

I am sure to exceed your expectations and to pursue my dreams and ambitions. Furthermore, my international background will give diversity to the projects holding within your program. Thank you for considering my application, and I look forward to your acceptance.

I would delete "holding" here. It's not the right word, and this sentence doesn't need a word there at all. See my earlier comment about the spelling of "programme".

Sincerely yours,
Varvara

We have this funny, old-fashioned rule about valedictions (also known as complimentary closes). You should only say "Yours sincerely" if you have addressed the letter by name. So if this letter started "Dear Professor Schmidt", it would be appropriate to end it "Yours sincerely". If you start a letter "Dear sir/madam", then you MUST close it "Yours faithfully". Any other valediction is an error.

Varya Diveeva · Answer

Dear David, hello!                                                                                             Thank you very much! Your remarks were really very helpful to me.        Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!                                                   Best wishes, Varvara

DMW · Answer

Hello Varya,
You're very welcome. Enjoy the holiday season and have a happy and prosperous new year.

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