could you please give some advice about my motivation letter! :)

Hello! and Happy New Year to everybody! :)
I wrote my motivation letter for Mater Programme. But I really need your help! I'm not sure about the structure and it seems to be too long (however I still have some issues to add) I tried to do my best! Please correct it and give me your advice!
Thank you in advance!



I would like to apply for Master's programme of Linguistics at ***. My name is ***. I have recently graduated from faculty of linguistics at ***. Last autumn I visited the ***. I knew about strong reputation of high qualified ***educational system, but I was very impressed with friendly atmosphere of ***. I am grateful for the supporting students from outside European countries with an opportunity to apply for International Master's programmes at your University.

I live in ***. The city was conceived by Peter the Great as the «Window to Europe». In the 21st century with expanding cultural and financial relations Russian is open to European countries as never before. There are a lot of people from other countries in our city. The process of cross cultural communication and international cooperation was always fascinating for me. I am very interested in studying languages as well as the cultures of other nations.


My first direct contact with people of another culture was when I was a student of the second year. Practically every summer I worked as a mentor in summer camps. In 2005 I had an international group of children from Germany and Russia. My main task was to assist them to improve their language skills and to discover national features through variety of joyful activities. Those four summer weeks gave me a unique opportunity for observations on cross cultural mutual influence between two nations. Also with the help of children who are free to express their feeling and emotions I became very interested in the issue of relation between language and emotions. I was researching the question of how languages express the emotional involvement of the speaker during the third year of study and finished my term papers with excellent grade.


Studying Spanish as extra-curriculum subject has equipped me with knowledge about similarities and differences among Germanic, Romanic and Slavic groups of Indo-European language family. I have been attended courses with native speakers in Saint Petersburg and then applied my language skills in practice in summer programme in Spain. That benefited me with fluent language in real-life situations and gave an opportunity to discover the richness of Spanish culture. Being open-minded, affable and optimistic person I met a lot of interesting people and made new dear friends who still bring warm moment into my life with their phone calls and e-mails.


My specialization at the University was Translation and Interpreting in the sphere of Business Communication. In order to achieve high results in interpreting and obtain not only theoretical but also practical knowledge I had been working part-time during 5 years of study. Having been an interpreter in major insurance company I obtained a great experience in my specialization, team work and practical skills in business communication, however the most important benefit for me was my confidence and development. This year I began to work as a teacher of English and can practically apply my skills. Graduated from the University I have solid foundation of linguistics knowledge, although I tend to know more.


My long term goal is research work in cognitive aspects of language. I am applying to this Master programme as I look forward to get a chance to be a young researcher at ***. It seems to me that Master degree would be a crucial step forward to this goal.


Thank you very much for your time and consideration of my application. I look forward to hearing from you soon.