Last in a two-part series
While writing 手紙 (tegami, letters) in Japanese may be intimidating, メール (mēru, emails) give nonnative speakers very few excuses for not keeping up our correspondence with Japanese friends.
Not only do you not have to go to the 郵便局 (yūbinkyoku, post office) and not spend money on 封筒 (fūtō, envelopes) and 切手 (kitte, stamps), you also don't have to remember how to write the kanji: Just let the パソコン (pasokon, computer) or 携帯 (keitai, mobile phone) take care of it for you.
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