Letter to a Friend About Moving House

  • Housing
  • Notification
  • Invitation

You have recently moved to a different house. Write a letter to an English-speaking friend. In your letter • explain why you have moved • describe the new house • invite your friend to come and visit Dear.............,

Annotated response

1 correction note

Dear Emily,

I hope you are doing great. I'm writing this letter to share some exciting news - I've recently moved to a new house, and I wanted to let you know about it.

The main reason for my move was to find a more spacious and peaceful environment. My previous apartment, though convenient, felt quite cramped, and the surrounding area was often noisy. This new place offers a much-needed change, allowing me to enjoy a better quality of life.

You'd be glad to know that my new home is a beautiful detached house located in Ottawa, Canada. It has three bedrooms, a modern kitchen, and a lovely backyard with a small garden. The neighbourhood is quiet and safe, with plenty of parks and cafés nearby. It truly feels like the perfect place to settle.

I'd love you to visit and stay for a while. Let me know when you can make the trip. I’ll be delighted to show you around!

Warm wishes,

Sophia

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 8.0

The letter fully and fluently achieves its communicative purpose, addressing all three bullet points with appropriate friendly tone and well-chosen detail. Its strongest aspect is the natural, flexible language throughout, while the main limitation is simply that development is pleasant rather than especially vivid or personalised.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

8.0

The letter directly covers all three bullet points—reason for moving, description of the house, and a warm invitation—in a consistently friendly register with relevant supporting detail.

Coherence and Cohesion

8.0

Paragraphing is clear and logically sequenced, with smooth linking within and between paragraphs and a natural opening and closing.

Lexical Resource

7.5

Vocabulary is flexible and precise for the topic, featuring natural collocations like 'cramped', 'spacious and peaceful environment', and 'settle', with only conventional rather than ambitious range in places.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

8.0

The letter uses a range of accurate structures, including present-perfect forms, relative clauses, modal expressions and a participial clause. These communicate the move, house description and invitation clearly, with flexible sentence construction and very good control.

More responses with feedback

View all 11 responses (6.5–8.0)