Hallo! Ich habe jetzt endlich meinen Brief für die Gastfamilie fertig und bin mir noch unsicher, ob dass alles so gut ist. Bitte um Tipps, Verbesserungsvorschläge und Kritik 
Dear host family,
My name is Selina and I’m 15 years old.
First of all, I want to thank you for giving me the chance to spend one year in the USA.
In this letter I would like to introduce myself, my family, my friends, my school and so on.
I was born on the 26th of November 2003, which means that I will be 16 years old when we meet. I live in a suburban town near Berlin, which lies in Eastern Germany. The town is called xxx and with about xxx inhabitants it’s a comparatively small town.
I live in a little house together with my mother and my step-father. My mother and my step-father both work at an IT company as Department Managers. I have a good relationship to both of them and really love and appreciate them and everything they do for me. I also have a step-sister, named xxx, who lives about two hours away from me in a town called xxx at the Baltic Sea. My grandparents also live in this town and it is like a second home to me, because I’ve been there many times. My step-sister is seven years older than me, so therefore she is 22 years old. Despite the seemingly big age difference we still get along very well. We sadly don’t see each other very often, but we text almost every day. She has influenced me in many good ways, and I have learned tons of important things from her. I also do not really see her as my step-sister anymore more as my real sister.
My mother and my father got divorced when I was 6 years old. He lives in a town nearby with his wife and works as the leader of a big stove and barbeque firm. But because of different reasons, we don’t have much contact and don’t see each other very often.
All in all, I would say that my family really is a big part of my life and that I’m a family person.
I sadly do not have any pets, but I love them, especially cats and dogs therefore I would be happy to have some in my host family.
I would describe myself as a very friendly and open person. I’m outright for new cultures and lifestyles. Even though I’m not religious I am very interested in the different religions so it wouldn’t be a problem for me to go to church with my host family, quite the opposite I would really love to. I think one of my best qualities is that I’m very optimistic and that I try to bring the best out of every situation. I am also diligent when it comes to school, due to that I’m a fairly good student.
At the moment I’m attending the 9th grade of the high school xxx, which is a large comprehensive school with about 1200 students. My school is located in Berlin, so my way to school is considerable long. I go there by bus and the subway and it takes about an hour which can be stressful sometimes, but I think I got used to it.
I’m very ambitious and want to learn as much as possible, because one of my biggest dreams is to become a doctor and to achieve that my grades have to be really good.
My high school is focused on languages, especially on the ancient ones, such as Latin and ancient Greek, which I really enjoy because I’m very interested in languages. Personally, I’m learning English, French and Latin. Although I like learning all of those languages, my favorite one and the one I’m interested in the most is English. I started learning it in an English language school when I was one and a half years old. And since then the language is really fascinating to me. I still remember, counting to 100 in English was one of my favorite “activities” as a little kid. Hence obviously English is my favorite subject in school, but I also like German, Biology and History. I’m currently participating in an official history contest with some of my friends, which has been organized from the Federal President of Germany. My school sadly doesn’t have much clubs to join, but there are a few for example the drama club which I am in, because I’m a big fan of acting and performing.
Speaking of my friends, my circle of friends is quite small, but I definitely prefer that over a large one because I’m very close with all of my friends. My best friend, named xxx and I really like to meet and do something together, we also like to go on some little adventures together sometimes. We just recently went to a city in the South of Germany without our parents, which definitely felt a little bit adventurous. We are also going to France to go surfing in the summer holidays together and I’m already looking forward to that. I think our favorite activity to do together in our leisure is to go to the cinema. We’re both big fans of actions movies. Besides one interest that we also share is politics, because of that were both members in a political youth organization. We have a meeting there every Thursday where we talk about current political issues with other interested people. Since my friend wants to do an exchange year too, we often talk in English, most of the times it’s just nonsense but it’s quite funny and it helps us to improve our English.
But I also like having a day off with just doing nothing as much as doing some activities with my friends or my family.
I enjoy reading books for instance. The shelf in my room is full of books and I like just sitting on the couch and reading one of them. My favorite genre is English poetry but I enjoy almost all kinds of books.
Another interest of mine are sports, I enjoy all different types of sports. In the summer I like to do gymnastics in our garden and in winter I like to go ice skating. I also really like playing volleyball with my friends or dancing with them. But I totally can enjoy simple work outs too.
However, my biggest interest and as I think also my greatest talent is music. I passionately play the piano for seven years now and I just recently started playing the guitar, because playing an instrument is really fun so I wanted to play another one. I like singing as well, even though I’m not really good at it. In addition to making music I also enjoy listening to music. My taste in music is really wide, I almost listen to every kind, from rock to classical music.
I’ve always loved travelling a lot and the USA always fascinated me. I’m really happy, that I will soon get the chance to get to know the country and the people living there. I’ve heard that the American school system is a lot different from ours. I’m very curious what it will be like to attend an American high school and experience the daily life at the other side of the world. Besides I’d like to improve my English and learn to speak fluently. I think that living in the USA will be an awesome experience for me and that it will have big influence on my life and personality. I like to try new things, find out about different cultures, people and languages. I hope that after the time in your family the USA will be a second home to me! But since I’ve heard so many good things about the life and the people there, I’m almost sure of it! Maybe in exchange of you showing me the American culture, I could show you a bit of the German one too. I could cook a typical German meal or bake a cake for you, for example.
Thank you for reading my letter I really hope you enjoyed it and got a good first impression of me. I also want to thank you for letting me be a part of your family. I very much look forward to seeing you soon!
Kind regards,
Selina