[xiaq]

I am pleasantly surprised to find a Chinese sentence on the TARDIS Go website :) That sentence - "请发送一份汉语的电子邮件到作者" - is a perfectly comprehensible, but you can sound more Chinese. For the amusement of the Chinese-illiterate, I have included a word-by-word English translation of each sentence.

* Put the preposition phrase before the verb, which is the usual order. That turns "请发送一份汉语的电子邮件到作者" (please send a Chinese email towards author) into "请向作者发送一份汉语的电子邮件" (please towards author send a Chinese email). I have also changed the preposition from "到" to "向".

* Drop the unnecessary quantifier and "的". Chinese defaults on "a" most of the time, and "的" is often not needed for noun phrases. That turns "请向作者发送一份汉语的电子邮件" into "请向作者发送汉语电子邮件" (please towards author send Chinese email).

* Use "写" (write) instead of "发送" (send). The latter is a direct translation from English and not very native. Also "电子邮件" (email) can just be "邮件" (mail), especially when on-line. That turns "请向作者发送汉语电子邮件" into "请给作者写汉语邮件" (please towards author write Chinese mail). I have changed the preposition again, from "向" to "给".

* Prefer composite verb phrases over adjectives for describing means (here, the mail is written in Chinese). That turns "请给作者写汉语邮件" into "请用汉语给作者写邮件" (please use Chinese towards author write mail).

That's pretty it. Actually, "请用汉语给作者写邮件" is how I would write the sentence, and I figured out a path from your version towards mine :)

PS1. About the preposition changes - yes, "到", "向", and "给" all mean "towards" in this case, and I cannot really explain why I changed them. I can probably point to some literature if you are interested...

PS2. Another tiny detail: since you are already using the Chinese period mark "。" I recommend you also to use the Chinese question mark "？" in the previous sentence for consistency.

[thegeneral]

Wow xiaq, thank you for your kind explanation of how I can improve one of my Chinese sentences. I am always impressed by the way that well-written Chinese is so short - Mandarin is a wonderful language!

I have changed the web-site to use your revised wording. Thank you again for giving me such excellent and complete feedback.

When TARDISgo is fully ready, I hope you will give it a try, then write to me in Chinese to tell me how you get on!