Kort bericht

At B1 the three points are mostly facts: what happened, why, what you want. At B2 at least one of them asks for a judgement or a proposal — an idea you find important, what you think of a plan, an alternative. The difficulty is not the letter format, which you already have. It is making that one point precise inside a tight word limit, because a vague idea costs as much as a missing one.

Schrijven II holds one or two short tasks among its 9–12, marked by two assessors against a scheme. Our 11 short tasks all ask for 40–80 words and name three points. The scheme asks three questions: are all the points handled, does the register suit this reader, and is the wording concise and precise. That third question is new compared with B1 — padding and vague phrasing are now marked, not just tolerated.

Beste Marieke, / Geacht bestuur,

The reader decides the register. A colleague who wrote to you informally gets Beste and je; a board or an organisation gets Geacht or Geachte and u. Choose once and keep it.

Bedankt voor je uitnodiging voor de werkgroep.

The first point, in the first sentence, naming the thing it is about. The reader knows at once which message you are answering.

Ik doe graag mee. / Helaas kan ik niet meedoen, omdat …

A yes or no the reader does not have to infer. At B2 an answer implied by enthusiasm is still an answer missing.

Ik stel voor dat …

The frame for the judgement or proposal point. What follows dat must name who does what, so a reader could act on it tomorrow.

Met vriendelijke groet, + naam

Both lines, always, for colleague and board alike. It costs four words of the limit and closes the message as finished.

• Een collega nodigt u per e-mail uit om deel te nemen aan een werkgroep die de samenwerking op de afdeling wil verbeteren. Schrijf een kort bericht terug: bedank voor de uitnodiging, geef aan of u meedoet en noem één idee of aandachtspunt dat u belangrijk vindt.

  The bank prompt. Three verbs, three points: bedank, geef aan, noem. The third carries the B2 load, and one idee means one — not a list of three, which eats the word limit and dilutes the precision the scheme asks for.

• Beste Marieke, Bedankt voor je uitnodiging voor de werkgroep. Ik doe graag mee, want ik merk zelf dat informatie tussen de teams niet altijd goed doorkomt. Ik stel voor dat elk team na zijn overleg een kort verslag deelt, zodat iedereen weet wat er besloten is. Met vriendelijke groet, Samir

  A strong outline in about 50 words: the thanks, an explicit yes whose reason leads into the idea, and an idea that names who does what. The register fits a colleague.

• Ik stel voor dat elk team na zijn overleg een kort verslag deelt.

  ✗Ik vind communicatie heel belangrijk.

  The wrong version is the most common third point in B2 short tasks: a true value that nobody could act on. It answers noem een idee on paper and fails bondig en precies in practice.

• Hierbij zeg ik mijn lidmaatschap op, omdat ik ga verhuizen.

  ✗Ik wil misschien stoppen met de club.

  From the bank task where you cancel a sports-club membership. Hierbij performs the act in the first sentence, and the reason the task names is carried by omdat. The wrong version hedges, and a board cannot process a maybe.

• +Exception 1

  When a point is marked eventueel — doe eventueel een tegenvoorstel — it is optional and the others are not. Write it if the word limit allows one clean sentence; if it does not, it is the only point you may drop.

• ✗Handling two of the three points. It is almost always the last one — the idea, the alternative, the question — because the first two used up the words.
• ✗A judgement point answered with a value instead of a proposal: communicatie is belangrijk, samenwerking moet beter. True, and nobody can act on it; the precision question is lost.
• ✗Mixing je and u in one message, or writing Hoi to a board. The register question is judged against the reader the task names, so read who the message is for before the first word.
• ✗Padding the thank-you or the reason to sound fluent and running past 80 words. At B2 concise is part of the scheme, so extra sentences do not show level — they count against it.