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I am writing a short letter in Japanese. I will doubtless make many mistakes. What is a nice way to acknowledge this to the recipient?

I apologise for using the forum incorrectly. With the help of these answers and other sources as indicated in the comments, I drafted an apology for bad Japanese as follows:

三年【さんねん】以上【いじょう】前【まえ】に日本語【にほんご】を勉強【べんきょう】する事【こと】が始【はじ】まる。学習【がくしゅう】時間【じかん】は手短【てみじ】かったら、日本語【にほんご】の表現【ひょうげん】は間違【まちが】っているかも知【し】れません。私【わたし】の日本語【にほんご】が変【へん】だったらすみません。

"I have been studying Japanese for a little over three years. As this is short time to be learning, my Japanese is not without errors in expression. If my Japanese is strange, I apologise."

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    I think this question would be a better one if you provided your attempt at writing this, as we don't do translations.
    – psosuna
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 18:38
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    Sure, I can provide an attempt. I thought there might be some kind of formula.
    – solidsnack
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 19:38
  • It's also generally a good idea to see if Google has an answer for you before asking on SE. I just cut-and-pasted your question's title directly into Google and immediately came up with many (many) forum hits on Quora and HiNative addressing exactly this..
    – Foogod
    Commented Feb 26, 2020 at 16:21
  • 日本語の勉強をはじめてから三年でして、失礼があれば申し訳ありません。 I'd go with this one.
    – HelloWorld
    Commented Mar 2, 2020 at 16:49

3 Answers 3

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By reading your sentences, I can easily understand what you're trying to say.

So I'll keep my corrections to a bare minimum:

三年と少し前に日本語を勉強し始めました。学習時間がまだ短いので、日本語の表現が間違っているかもしれません。私の日本語が変だったらすみません。

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日本語に慣れてなくてすみません。

This is interpreted as Sorry I'm not good at Japanese.

日本語に is Japanese
慣れてなくて means Not used to
すみません is a formal apology.

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  • Is there no conflict between using formal すみません while dropping the い in 慣れていなくて (especially in writing)?
    – Kaskade
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 9:46
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    I think it won't be a trouble in most cases, especially in a situation where you need to tell the recipient that you acknowledge that you are aware of the mistakes. い dropping is seen in official statement that LDP has published. jimin.jp/news/press/chairman_prc/132488.html
    – HelloWorld
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 10:19
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    @Kaskade In general, no issue having those combined. For a formal letter it would be better to not drop いs if course (but OP didn’t specify formality level or context).
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Commented Feb 25, 2020 at 14:09
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This is basically, "I am a beginner at Japanese, so I am sorry that my mistakes can't be avoided."
日本語の新米です。文法や単語が間違いですので、しかたがありません。すみません。

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