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Last summer my family hosted a Japanese exchange student for two weeks, and we've kept in touch with her a lot. Unfortunately, about 2 months ago I found out she had Leukemia. She said she'll recover...but it'll take a long time (6 months according to her)

I know Japanese at an intermediate level, so it strikes me as odd I've never picked up the phrase "Get well soon". We're sending her a bunch of gifts and a card (and my family knows I'm the only one with any knowledge of Japanese), so they put it on me to write what goes inside of it.

Please help me not screw this up =x She's 16 turning 17 soon if that makes a big difference.

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There are a couple of ways to say this.

体に気をつけてください　→　Please look after yourself
体をお大事に　→　Take care of yourself

However, given the severity of her illness, these sound casual, a little "flaky", and somewhat insincere. Here are a few that are better.

ご自愛を祈ります　→　Please take good care of yourself / your health.
ご全快の一日も早いことをお祈りいたします　→　I hope you will get well soon. / I hope you will soon be restored to health.

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  • The very last one, how do I make it so the sentiment comes from our whole family? Or is that implied?
    – LainIwakura
    Jul 13, 2011 at 0:02
  • @Lain: all the example above, being typical Japanese sentences do not have an explicit subject. Depending on context, they could be "I" or "we/our family"...
    – Dave
    Jul 13, 2011 at 0:08
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    @Lain - you can add 家族一同 to the front to make it explicit: 家族一同、ご全快の一日も早いことを...
    – ento
    Jul 13, 2011 at 4:47
  • @Lain: Assuming you're writing to her, any of the above would do considering your relationship. However the first two are usually spoken language (話し言葉) and the last two are formal spoken / written language (書き言葉) IMO.
    – crunchyt
    Jul 13, 2011 at 23:26

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