i'm out of germany and i wnat to do my internship in the USA. Therefor i translated my application into english.
i hope you can give me a few tips to improve these. especially the formatting.
Is the sentance "I remain Sir" normally used?
PS: I've forgotten to do write a comma after "Sir or Madam"
I will try to help you. I am a native speaker and a writer, but not a teacher.
I wish to apply for an internship with your company for the period March to August of 2008.
Next paragraph: fine except you need another comma after Germany. "Landshausen, Germany, specializing in..."
Next paragraph: fine. And you don't really need to start a new paragraph before "For these reasons, I am convinced that I could be of service to your company. As your company conducts research and development in this field, [add comma here] I am sure that I could also learn a lot that would be beneficial both for my further education and a possible future employer.
I would like to be able to complete an internship in the United States for several reasons: [note added colon] the greatest of these is a wish to improve my knowledge of the English language and to learn more about America, its people,history and customs.
I look forward to hearing from you in the near future and thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Yours sincerely, [lower case on second word in closing]
I've noted a couple of punctuation changes in brackets for fear you might miss them. "I remain, Sir," (with or without "yr. obedient servant" after it) makes me feel all romantic and ready to hire you immediately, but I am afraid that it is extremely old-fashioned. So you probably should skip it. On the other hand, it might make you stand out from the crowd and appear exotic and carefully educated. What do other members think? And do other members think that colon in the penultimate paragraph is the right thing to use?
I think, that I will delete: "I remain Sir". It really could be, that it is old-style, because i written it with a pensioner, he was a professional translator, in the past .
But i'm a little bit shocked, that there is so much wrong, because this guy who helped me is a native speaker (but out of UK).
what you are thinking about the rest? (also the resume, i saw that there is a distinct different between US-resumes and germans, especially in formatting -do you tink, that it is necertheless OK?)
and is the formatting well arranged?
And is it not better to say:
...is THE wish...
instead of: the greatest of these is a wish to improve
I don't think there was anything really wrong with the letter the way it was---I just made corrections that made it flow a bit smoother to my ear. As far as the comma after Germany, this forum has made it abundantly clear that there are numerous differences between British and American punctuation habits. I changed the punctuation to reflect the way I was taught.
"The wish" vs. "a wish"---a very subtle difference there! I think maybe I do like "the wish" better---you might also want to consider "the desire to improve...." Or---Americans are very big on "goals." What do you think of, "I would like to complete an internship in the United States for several reasons; (on second thought I think the semicolon should stay!)the most important of these is my goal to improve.." etc.
And the construction with "Looking forward to..." in the last paragraph goes along with the old-style "I remain, Sir" closing---it sets it up, so to speak. Once "I remain, Sir" was removed, the rest had to go as well.
I'm very sorry, but I'm unable to open the additional files for some reason. (I had difficulty opening the letter the first time.) Is there any other way to provide an attachment? However, I have no knowledge of what a resume or CV ought to look like. Sorry!
The naming of my Enclosures... I think it sounds really bad.
overview of marks/grades or only transcript? -of study
And i think ...desire... or only ...my goal to improve... sounds best, because the other sounds too much as i only come to learn english. And the most important reason for my future employer is that i work well, and not that i come to learn english.
Okey-doke, I've attached the cover letter with what I think shown in red. As for the resume, as I said I have no idea what they are supposed to look like; this one seems fine to me except for the "mother tongue" classification. I think nowadays, in our efforts to remove all gender references from the language, we're calling it "Primary Language" or "Native Language" or something like that.
Also, I think "Qualifications" should be plural.
Hobbies: it might look better to list a couple of them, not just basketball. I think the point of describing hobbies is to make you look healthy and well-rounded, also interesting. There's nothing wrong with basketball, but it looks a little stark. Also if you do something like build and race robot cars, or anything like that that would make you look really, really passionate about automotive engineering, now is the time to mention it.
But like I said I am not a resume expert, or even a resume novice.
Oh, I see. I was so busy concentrating on the letter I didn't notice those. Yes, you're right, that won't work. By "overview of grades of study" do you mean what we call a transcript? It shows all the courses you took and the grades you made for each year you were in college or university. If that's it I would write "XXX University transcript."
I'm not sure what "testimony of electrical assistant" is, either. Is this what we call a "letter of recommendation"---a letter from someone you worked for saying what a great guy you are? In that case I would write, "Letter of recommendation, XXX."
need help for my application in the USA 
So you probably should skip it. On the other hand, it might make you stand out from the crowd and appear exotic and carefully educated. What do other members think? And do other members think that colon in the penultimate paragraph is the right thing to use? 
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