You are trying to improve your knowledge of a language that is not your first language. You have a friend who speaks it fluently. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - explain why you want to improve your knowledge of the language - ask for suggestions on how to learn more quickly - propose meeting your friend to talk about it
Sample Response
Dear Leo, I hope you're doing great. I've recently joined a multinational company, and many of my colleagues speak Spanish in the workplace. I studied basic Spanish in high school and have always been fascinated byfelt a fascination with this language. Moreover, I believeMoreover, I believe, I would work more efficiently if I spokespeak Spanish with my coworkers. So I thought it was time to contact you for some helpget in touch with you and get some help since you’re a fluent Spanish speakerfluent speaker of Spanish. I wonder if you could give me a few tips on how to speed up my Spanish learning? Do you think I should buyget a self-study book, or watch some video tutorials onfrom YouTube? Sometimes I think about enrolling ingetting enrolled in a Spanish language course, but I'm not sure if it'll suit me. I would value your advice on thisI think you can guide me on this. I look forward toI'll be looking forward to your advicetips and advice. If you're in the areaIf you’re going to be in the area in the next few days, we could get together andget together, and I could pick your brains about this subject. We haven't been to an authentic Chinese restaurant for a while, and we could discuss it in detail over dinner someday. I hope to see you soon. Take careTake care and stay fine. Yours truly,
Stephen
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter’s strongest feature is its complete, friendly response: it explains the workplace motivation, asks about several learning methods, and proposes a natural dinner meeting. Its main limitation is organisation, because all three purposes are compressed into one body paragraph, while a few conditional and collocational errors reduce polish. Prioritise separating the reasons, advice request, and meeting plan, then correct forms such as ‘if I could speak Spanish’.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully developed with clear personal reasons, specific requests for advice, and a suitable informal meeting proposal.
Make the meeting arrangement slightly more definite by suggesting a particular day or inviting Leo to choose one.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas progress naturally from motivation to learning options and a meeting, but the entire body is presented as one long paragraph.
Use separate paragraphs for the reasons, the request for advice, and the proposed dinner meeting.
Lexical Resource
The letter uses a flexible and appropriately informal range, including natural phrases such as ‘get in touch’ and ‘pick your brains’, with a few awkward combinations.
Replace phrases such as ‘felt a fascination’, ‘Spanish learning’, and ‘get enrolled’ with more natural alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A varied range of sentence structures is mostly controlled, though the conditional ‘would work more efficiently if I speak’ and some punctuation are inaccurate.
Use a consistent hypothetical form—‘would work more efficiently if I could speak Spanish’—and remove unnecessary commas.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are trying to improve your knowledge of a language that is not your first language. You have a friend who speaks it fluently. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- explain why you want to improve your knowledge of the language
- ask for suggestions on how to learn more quickly
- propose meeting your friend to talk about it
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.