Can you look over this email I'm going to send to see if it makes sense?
 

I'm sending it to someone I don't know so I aimed for it to be formal, but not TOO formal.
Can someone do a quick look over and tell me if it all looks ok, or if some things need to be changed?

Here's the email:

(AUTHOR NAME) さまへ

私の名前はリアムです。19歳なイグリス人の男の人です� ��
去年日本に行った時で、’(TITLE)’の日本語の本を買い� �した。　イグリスに帰ってから、読みました。
とても、とてもすごいな本だと思いました！その気持ち だから、(TITLE)は私の一番好きな本になりました。

次な日本に行く時に、あなたを会いたいでも、あなたは たぶんすごく忙しいですね。

私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい！

これを読んでくれてありがとうございます！
リアム


Obviously where I've put the English words in brackets I'm going to exchange them for Japanese in the email that I'll send. :D

Particular sentences/parts that I want checked are:

19歳なイグリス人の男の人です。
その気持ちだから、
私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい！
これを読んでくれてありがとうございます！

Thanks for any help anyone can give! :D

EDIT: I don't know if a few question marks in diamonds have shown up for the rest of you, but if they did, the ones after the 'desu' on the first line are just meant to be a full stop, and the other ones are meant to be the hiragana for 'ma' :S

Oh and it may be helpful for you to have the English of what I was attempting to say, so here it is:

Dear (AUTHOR)

My name is Liam. I am a 19 year old British man.
Last year when I went to Japan, I bought the Japanese language (version) of your book, (TITLE). After I returned to Britain, I read it.
I thought it was a very, very great book! Because of that feeling, (TITLE) became my favourite book.

Next time I go to Japan I'd like to meet you, but you are probably very busy, right?

Sorry if my Japanese is bad!

Thank you very much for reading this!
Liam

There certainly are mistakes, plenty of them to be honest, but I see no point in correcting them when you yourself are saying 私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい.

I will correct two. The first one will be totally unacceptable and the second one will look too funny because it's your own country's name.

あなた　＞ Unacceptable. Use 「family name + 先生」

イグリス　＞　イギリス

Thanks for those. I've altered the major one and the minor one. And wow, 'gu' instead of 'gi' was really a total basic screw-up on my part :o

Are there any more major ones, or are they all minor from here on out?

If you or anyone else reading can tell me any more then I'd REALLY appreciate it. :D

Basically there are a few errors and more awkward phrasings that make you sound non-native.

That being said, the meaning is completely understandable; I didn't have to look at your English translation at all. Were I a Japanese artist, I would be enthused to get the letter just the way you've written it. It means more when it looks like you tried your hardest to express yourself!

Masaegu, would you agree with the notion that saying

私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい！

is a little weird?

I would say

私の日本語が下手だから、ごめんなさい！

In other words, instead of qualifying it by saying "If my Japanese is strange, then I am sorry," saying "My Japanese is strange, so I am sorry."

My feeling is that "If... then I am sorry" statements aren't genuine. So if it isn't true, you aren't sorry? Either you are sorry or you are not. Is this also true in Japanese?

Good question.　I didn't even notice that one on my first read through, which is probably because it was already in the context of not natively written Japanese. The whole letter sounds "foreign" to me from the very first sentence 「私の名前はリアムです。」. Isn't that straight out of Japanese textbooks used outside of Japan? It isn't something we would ever say.

The sentence 「私の日本語が下手だったら、ごめんなさい。」　actual ly is weird because it can imply that the speaker feels his Japanese is pretty good.

Not that OP should sound like a native speaker, a native speaker would phrase this as:
「下手な日本語で失礼します。」
「下手な日本語でお許しください。」
or if I had to use ごめんなさい
「日本語が下手なので、ごめんなさい。」

I agree with your notion of the combination of だったら and ごめんなさい being less than genuine even though I must admit that some Japanese-speakers would actually use the combo in informal speech if they aren't paying attention to what they are saying.

Hi masaegu san, do you mind translating the above phrases you wrote into English for my understanding?

What do you think, Maxful?

They both mean "Excuse me for my poor Japanese."

マサエグさん、ありがとうございました。:)

And if you want to be hyperliteral about the sentences (masaegu's translation is more correct, but this will sort of show the meaning behind the bits of the sentence),
下手な日本語で失礼します。 = I commit offense/am impolite due to my poor Japanese.
下手な日本語でお許しください。 = Would you please permit/forgive me for my poor Japanese?

I have to admit, I'm not sure whether to classify the で as the particle or as the てform of だ here. I assumed it was the particle (for some reason), but if it's the てform of the copula then they are slightly different in literal translation:

The Japanese is bad [in this letter], so I commit offense/am impolite/am sorry.
The Japanese is bad [in this letter], so would you please permit/forgive it/me?

What could be some alternative ways to say this that'll make it sound more native? From asking around a few places on the internet, I've gotten the following possibilities:

____________ と申します。

____________ といいます。

Could either of these be used? Would you say either of them is better than '私の名前はリアムです。'?

HERE IS MY FINAL DRAFT:


(AUTHOR NAME) さまへ

私の名前はリアムです。19歳のイギリス人の男性です。
去年日本に行った時に、「(TITLE)」の日本語の本を買い� �した。　イギリスに帰ってから、読みました。
とても、とても素晴らしい本だと思いました！それから 、(TITLE)は私の一番好きな本になりました。

次に日本に行く時に、(AUTHOR SURNAME)先生に会いたいと思いますが、(AUTHOR SURNAME)先生はたぶんとてもお忙しいでしょうね。

下手な日本語でお許しください。

読んでいただいてありがとうございます！
リアム


Does this look alright? :D
I'm hoping to send it tomorrow

EDIT: If there are the question marks in diamonds again, they're once again supposed to be 'ま'

Thanks for sharing it with me, KyleGoetz san. :)

In both cases, it is a particle.

Use the first one. The second one is too conversational.

Looks good. Don't worry about not sounding like a Japanese-speaker. It will be more personable that way.

Lol hey there Liam! I'm AnonStudent from Y!A :D Glad to see you took my advice. Did you make an account on Lang-8 too?

Also, Mr. Masaegu, since he's trying to say "I bought the Japanese language (version) of your book, (TITLE)." wouldn't ”「(TITLE)」の日本語版を買いました。” be a closer translation? Just curious ;)

Of course, it would, Ms. SP.

I didn't change it because my basic opinion is that unless there are parts where you are unintentionally saying something that could offend the reader, you should send your letter as is even with the mistakes and unnaturalness. This is why I only changed two parts in my first post. If I were the manga-ka, I don't think I would appreciate a letter in perfect Japanese from England. I would know immediately that it wasn't written by the fan himself.

Thanks. :)
That's a good thing to hear. As I've never lived in Japan or been anywhere near a Japanese district, I wasn't expecting it to sound native. If it did... I would be gob-smacked! XD

It looks like all the corrections I got are relatively minor, and I'll learn them now that I know where I went wrong. :p

Thanks for all the help Masaegu. :)
Yeah I know what you mean about sending it not perfectly, I guess I never thought about it like that though, so that's a good point.
Well what's done is done now, and even if I don't get a reply (which I probably won't, knowing manga-ka's) I'm happy that I got to work on this mail and improve my Japanese because of it. :p

Woah! What're the chances of that eh! Glad to meet you again :D
Yeah, it was some great advice. I did make an account, and I'm going to start trying to make a habit of posting journals on there in Japanese regularly to keep my knowledge refreshed and to gain new knowledge too. :)

As for that 版 addition, I think I learned about it too late so it didn't make the final cut, but I guess it's not too big a deal, I'm pretty sure I got my meaning across. :D

If you used snail mail rather than email, you would have a much bigger chance of getting a reply. No guarantee, though. Depends largely on how popular and busy the artist is. When I was a kid, a friend of mine received an autographed picture postcard from his favorite manga-ka.

I see, thanks for the tip. I checked the site though and he only gives his e-mail address, and his last news update was in 2008 :L
If I ever find someone to write to again though I'll be sure to snail mail. :)