Plan your letter.

Use paragraphs to separate out ideas. You will probably need to use three or four different paragraphs here. Look at the following plan and decide if you could use it:

a) paragraph one - thank your friend for his/her email and say something about what was said in it

b) paragraph two - list your adjectives (positive and negative ones). Paragraph two will be the longest. That is quite normal because this is where most of the information is.

c) paragraph three - say something about your friend writing back

When describing your own character like this, it would be a good idea to say something positive about yourself, and then follow it immediately with something negative before saying something else positive.

Use linking words like but, though, however, on the other hand. Also, use words like very, quite, really, terribly, not at all, never etc to modify your statements.

The following sentence may help you: I am quite artistic. I'm good at making things and at drawing, but I'm not at all organized. My room is always a terrible mess.

4. Use the present perfect to describe your character as well as the present simple: I've always been quite selfish but I can be very helpful to people I like.

5. The following model letter will help you:

Dear Steven,

Thank you very much for your email. It was really interesting to read all about your town, and your school and friends. It was fun to read about you too. You sound like a really optimistic and cheerful kind of person.

You asked me about my star sign and about what kind of person I am. Well, my birthday is on the 18th June. That means I'm a Gemini. According to a book I read, this means I'm quite witty. I do make my friends laugh with things that I say, so perhaps that's true. I think I can be quite conceited though. I know that's bad, but I do find it difficult sometimes not to tell everyone if I've done well in a test or something. My twin brother is exactly the same!

We're both quite adventurous too. We like doing quite dangerous sports. He is excellent at skateboarding and I do a lot of climbing in the hills near our home town. I can be quite fussy about some things. I know that's not good, but I am only really fussy about my room. I don't like people coming in and changing anything. I'm not fussy about what I eat, for example.

I'm very sociable - I've got lots of friends and I love going out, but I can be quite shy too. I find it difficult to go to a party if I don't know anyone there.

Anyway, I've got to go now.

Write back again soon.

Clara.

Note: the words in bold in the model essay are topic vocabulary that you can learn. Try and use these words when writing about these particular topics. In addition, typical phrases and expressions are underlined to show you how to link your sentences or paragraphs.

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