How to Write the Email in the Goethe A1 Exam (Schreiben, Teil 2)

Thirty words are worth ten marks. The formal-or-informal decision, the exact Anrede and Grußformel, three worked model letters, and the sentences to learn by heart.

The short email in the A1 exam is the most predictable marks on the paper. It is about thirty words long, it always asks you to cover exactly three points, and the opening and closing lines are fixed phrases you can decide on before you ever see the question.

Which also means there is no excuse for losing marks here. Almost everyone who does loses them for the same four reasons: the wrong register, a missing comma, an inconsistent du/Sie, or a bullet point they forgot to answer.

What the Schreiben section is

The A1 exam has four sections — Hören (listening), Lesen (reading), Schreiben (writing) and Sprechen (speaking). Writing takes about twenty minutes and has two tasks:

• Teil 1 — fill in a form (Formular) with five missing pieces of information. Five marks. We covered that one separately: how to fill in the Formular.
• Teil 2 — write a short email or letter, around thirty words, four or five sentences. Ten marks.

So the little email is two-thirds of the section. A letter and an email are written identically at this level, so it makes no difference which one the task names.

(Formats do get revised — check the current one on the Goethe-Institut's own site before your exam date.)

First decision: formal or informal

Everything else follows from this, and the task always tells you. Read it once looking only for the person you are writing to.

That last row is the trap, and it appears in real exams. Ihre neue Kollegin Frau Müller looks friendly and informal; the moment a surname arrives with Frau, you are writing a formal email.

The Anrede — your opening line

The Anrede is the salutation, and it ends with a comma. Every version you might need:

Formal

Informal

Three rules hide in those tables, and each one is worth a mark:

1. The masculine form takes -r: geehrter Herr, Lieber Thomas. The feminine form does not: geehrte Frau, Liebe Anna. Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren uses the feminine form.
2. The second greeting is lowercase: …und sehr geehrter Herr Müller, …und lieber Felix. It is one sentence, not two.
3. The man is named first when you address a man and a woman.

The lowercase first word

Because the Anrede ends in a comma, the sentence has not finished. The first word of your first line is therefore written small:

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

mein Name ist Sara Karimi.

Not Mein. This catches nearly everyone once. Two things to keep straight. A noun keeps its capital wherever it lands, so an opening line beginning with a noun phrase looks like vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail — small v, capital D. And only the first sentence is affected; every sentence after it starts normally, with a capital letter.

The Grußformel — your closing line

Formal: Mit freundlichen Grüßen, then your full name on the next line. Informal: Viele Grüße (or Liebe Grüße), then your first name only.

Two rules: no comma after either phrase, and both stay on the left of the page — German letters do not put the signature on the right.

Keep the pronouns consistent

The formal Sie and Ihr are always capitalised, wherever they sit in the sentence. Starting a letter with Sehr geehrte Frau Müller and then slipping into kannst du halfway down is one of the most visible mistakes you can make, because the examiner sees it immediately.

The shape of every answer

Seven lines, always the same:

1. Anrede + comma
2. an opening sentence
3. the first bullet point of the task — usually why you are writing
4. the second bullet point
5. the third bullet point, which is usually a question
6. a closing sentence
7. Grußformel + your name

Count the bullets before you write. The examiner has three boxes to tick. An elegant letter that answers two of them scores worse than a plain one that answers all three.

Three worked examples

1. Formal, to an office

**Sie möchten im Juli Frankfurt besuchen. Schreiben Sie eine E-Mail an die
Tourist-Information.**

– Warum schreiben Sie?
– Bitten Sie um Informationen über Museen, Restaurants usw.
– Fragen Sie nach Hoteladressen.

No name, and it is an office, so it is formal with Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren. Neither side knows the other, so introduce yourself first.

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

mein Name ist Sara Karimi. Ich möchte im Juli nach Frankfurt reisen. Bitte schicken Sie mir
Informationen über Museen und Restaurants in Frankfurt. Können Sie mir auch ein paar Hotels
empfehlen? Vielen Dank im Voraus für Ihre Hilfe.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Sara Karimi

Note nach Frankfurt reisen, not Frankfurt besuchen. Using a different word than the task is better if you are sure of it — but see tip 2 below if you are not.

2. Informal, to a friend

**Sie möchten Ihren Geburtstag feiern und Ihren Freund Thomas einladen. Schreiben Sie Thomas
eine E-Mail.**

– Warum schreiben Sie?
– Sagen Sie, wann und wo Sie feiern.
– Fragen Sie, ob Thomas kommt.

A first name and the word Freund: informal, du.

Lieber Thomas,

wie geht es dir? Ich hoffe, es geht dir gut. Ich möchte dich zu meinem Geburtstag einladen. Die
Feier ist am Samstag um 18 Uhr bei mir zu Hause. Kommst du?

Ich freue mich auf deine Antwort.

Viele Grüße
Sara

Two details. zu takes the dative, which is why it is zu meinem Geburtstag. And if a name is unfamiliar and you cannot tell whether it belongs to a man or a woman, the task itself tells you: Ihren Freund is masculine (Freundin would be feminine), and the -en ending on Ihren only happens with a masculine accusative. So: Lieber Thomas.

3. Formal, the one that looks informal

**Ihre neue Kollegin Frau Müller hat Sie am Dienstag um 15 Uhr zu ihrer Geburtstagsfeier ins
Büro eingeladen. Schreiben Sie eine E-Mail an Frau Müller.**

– Warum schreiben Sie?
– Sagen Sie, dass Sie später kommen.
– Fragen Sie, ob sie Hilfe braucht.

Kollegin suggests a friend. Frau Müller overrules it. Formal.

Sehr geehrte Frau Müller,

vielen Dank für die Einladung zu Ihrer Geburtstagsfeier. Ich komme gern, aber ein bisschen
später. Ich habe um 14:30 Uhr einen Termin und komme danach. Brauchen Sie Hilfe für die Feier?
Soll ich etwas mitbringen?

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Sara Karimi

Sentences worth learning by heart

These fit almost any task, and they are the quickest way to reach thirty words without inventing anything risky.

Opening — formal

• mein Name ist …
• vielen Dank für Ihre E-Mail.

Opening — informal

• wie geht es dir?
• ich hoffe, es geht dir gut.

Asking for information

• Bitte schicken Sie mir Informationen über …
• Können Sie mir … empfehlen?
• Wann beginnt …?
• Wo ist …? / Wo findet … statt?
• Wie viel kostet …?

Invitations

• Ich möchte dich zu … einladen.
• Ich komme gern.
• Leider kann ich nicht kommen.
• Ich komme um … Uhr. / Ich komme ein bisschen später.

Requests

• Können Sie mir bitte helfen? / Kannst du mir bitte helfen?
• Können Sie mir bitte eine Liste schicken?

Closing

• Vielen Dank im Voraus für Ihre Hilfe.
• Ich freue mich auf Ihre Antwort. / … auf deine Antwort.

Learn one from each group rather than all of them. A phrase you can write without hesitating is worth five you half-remember.

Five tips that change the mark

1. Write simple sentences. The exam does not reward ambition. A subordinate clause you are not sure of is a mistake waiting to happen; a short main clause cannot go wrong.

2. Borrow words from the task. If the task says Sie möchten Frankfurt besuchen and you cannot remember reisen, write Ich möchte Frankfurt besuchen. Some teachers dislike this. It is still far better than a wrong word, and it costs you nothing.

3. Only use nouns whose article you know. The wrong article drags the wrong endings behind it, so one uncertain noun can cost several marks. Choose a word you are sure of.

4. Two tricks for finding a gender. A compound noun takes the gender of its last part — Geburtstagsfeier is die Feier, so die Geburtstagsfeier. And you can often read the gender straight out of the task: in zu ihrer Geburtstagsfeier, zu forces the dative, and ihrer is the dative feminine form — so the noun is feminine.

5. Answer all three bullets. Then count them again.

Two minutes of checking

Write on the rough paper first. Then check, in this order:

1. Are all the nouns capitalised? German capitalises every noun, and this is the easiest sweep to do.
2. Are the verbs in the right place? Second in a statement — and at the very end when a modal verb is doing the work: Ich möchte dich einladen.
3. Is the register consistent? Sie or du the whole way through, with formal Sie/Ihr capitalised.
4. Comma after the Anrede, no comma after the Grußformel.
5. Thirty words, three bullets.

Only then copy it onto the Antwortbogen. The answer sheet is the only thing that gets marked — leave enough time, and do not spend it rewriting sentences you had already got right.

After A1

The writing task grows with every level: at A2 you explain and apologise, at B1 you argue a position in a forum post. The habits above scale, so build them now — and if you are aiming further, we wrote a realistic six-month plan to B1 and a guide to the vocabulary method that makes it possible.