[Sashimister]

I've been wondering about this quite some time but was always afraid of asking.

Why do many people seem to think it cooler to write letters or cards to Japanese friends in Japanese when they aren't able to write them by themselves? We get these types of requests in the Japanese Help section from people who, later on, turn out to be complete noobs to the Japanese language.

Why do they want to send something that isn't their own and something that their Japanese friend will find out in a second was clearly written by someone else? Who do these letters make happy? What's wrong with writing it in your first language even if you had to use simple language?

I have no problem with this if the language of communication has always been Japanese between the two persons. Otherwise, this phenomenon leaves me in the dark.