Thank you for everyone that helped me make sure everything made sense. Compiling the sentences that people helped me correct, this is the final product (name censored, obviously.)
〇〇さんへ、(<name>),
〇〇さんさん、ご無沙汰しています。お誕生日おめでとうございます。よい日々になりますように。(<name>, it’s been a while since we talked. Happy birthday. I hope you have a great day.)
今日は高校生として最後の誕生日で、悲しいですよね? (Today is your last high school birthday, isn’t that sad?)
でも、次の誕生日もきっと楽しくなるよ。友達になってくれてありがとう! (However, I’m sure your next birthdays will be even more fun. Thank you for being my friend!)
このカードが読めなかったら、ごめんなさいね。
(Sorry if you can’t understand this card.)
何かが分からなかったら連絡しておいてね. (If you don’t understand, contact me.)
バスより (From, <name>)
My main concerns overall are:
1. Even though I can read it with a few instances of looking up kanji, does it sound…unrefined? I’ve only been learning for a few months and sentence structure is still hard for me, and I want her to know I really tried hard into making this sentences sound good with using google translate/copying sentences from professionals.
2. Is it causal enough? We are just friends, we don’t look down or up at each other.
3. She has a Japanese name and I don’t. We are friends, so would I write her first name or her last name? What about my last name or first name? I don’t know the kanji for her name, so I would just write in Katakana, right?
Thank you very much for everyone who helped me! I’m seriously grateful. I hope you all have a wonderful day/evening, wherever you are.
3 comments
Just a few comments if I may:
〇〇さん**さん**、ご無沙汰しています。お誕生日おめでとうございます。よい**日々**になりますように。
> Double with the -san. In fact, you probably don’t need the name here again because you just wrote her name above
> hibi here would mean “days”, so よい一日 might be better
でも、次の誕生日**も**きっと楽しくなるよ。友達になってくれてありがとう!
> At the moment it reads something like “But your next birthday will also be more enjoyable”; maybe something like 次の誕生日はきっともっと楽しくなるよ。
> Just a general comment: you went from rather polite/formal in your first sentence to completely casual here. Would recommend modifying your first sentence if you want the letter to sound more casual
このカードが読めなかったら、ごめんなさいね。 何かが分からなかったら連絡しておいてね.
> Just a recommendation: people often include a line like this when they aren’t entirely confident in how they have written the letter, but this is often the part that makes the least sense! I would replace this with something like “let me know how you’re doing!” if you would like her to write back
==========
1. I think you did a great job and it doesn’t sound unrefined! Sounds like a friendly birthday message to me
2. At the moment it goes from formal to casual, so I would recommend either choosing to go with a more polite/formal letter (with です・ます) or going entirely casual
3. I would recommend writing her name as whatever you refer to her as. If she’s Japanese, katakana or hiragana should both be fine if you don’t know the kanji. As for your name, it’s what you choose or what she refers to you as?
Hope she likes the card!
you and that birthday card, I hope it turns out well for you guys
I agree with pretty much everything in the long reply you’ve already received. (I’d tag the user…but they seem to have deleted their account?)
Just a few additional points:
– Personal preference, perhaps, but I’d change 悲しいですよね？ to ちょっと寂しいですよね？ or ちょっと寂しいのかな？ or the like. 悲しい sounds like more profound sadness or grief, and it seems a little strong/overly depressing simply to describe someone’s last birthday as a high-schooler, so I’d tend to “soften” this a bit.
– If this person has been your friend for a while, 友達**でいて**くれてありがとう instead of 友達**になってくれて** would get that nuance across a bit better. なってくれて is fine as well, of course, but is closer in nuance to “becoming my friend” or “making friends with me”, so it kind of sounds like the two of you becoming friends was relatively recent or something that just happened.
– As the other user mentioned, the このカードが読めなかったら part is a bit strong, and also kind of gives the nuance of the lack of understanding being the other person’s fault (I realize this isn’t your intention, of course — just talking about the wording). If you feel the need to apologize for your Japanese or something, you could phrase it as 私の日本語が読みづらかったら、ごめんなさいね (“I’m sorry if my Japanese is difficult to read”), 読みづらい日本語ですみませんね (“I apologize for my awkward Japanese”), or the like.
– Continuing from that, I agree with the other reply that you don’t really need this sentiment at all (given how much effort you’ve put into this, clearly it’s going to be overall excellent Japanese which should be perfectly understandable to your friend). Something like よかったら、時間がある時にお返事くださいね。 or お時間のある時にお返事もらえたら嬉しいです or whatever would probably be more natural.
– Like the other reply said, you don’t need to worry too much about being too polite or too rude unless you’re using ridiculous flowery keigo or extremely blunt/rude speech — which you’re not. Just try to make sure you stay consistent using either です・ます form or casual/plain form throughout rather than mixing them up too much and you’ll be fine.
And yes, hope your friend likes the card!