What does お楽しみおしています mean?


Today I was practicing Japanese with my friend, and I was writing an imaginary
letter to send to Japan. I wanted to write:

> I can't wait to hear from you, but please do what you like // I can't wait
> to contact you, but please do what you like

He told me that in Japanese you don't really say 'I hope this' or 'I hope
that' and instead I should say: お楽しみおしています.

I came up with the final sentence:

> 僕は連絡を出来ますとお楽しみおしていますでも、お好きなよしてください。

Firstly, is that correct?

Secondly, could someone explain the usage and proper meaning of お楽しみおしています?
I'm not even sure if I've written it down right, because he said it and I
wrote down what I heard.




First! The correct spelling here is actually 楽しみ **に** しております. To perhaps make
things more clear, the root phrase here is 楽しみにする, though I don't think I've
ever heard someone omit the お in front of 楽しみ. The phrase your friend gave you
is the humble equivalent of お楽しみにしています (おる = いる in 謙譲語｛けんじょうご}), which is
often appropriate when writing letters so let's go with that.

> He told me that in Japanese you don't really say 'I hope this' or 'I hope
> that'

Right. It's uncommon to say things like "I wish" or "I hope" in regard to
actions dependent on another's volition; typically one uses phrases like those
(ように願う, ように祈る) when speaking about things that can broadly be described as
determined by "fate" (getting a job, meeting the love of your life, getting an
A on a test), but you wouldn't say them directly to the people responsible for
determining them. So when you say:

> 僕は連絡を出来ますと楽しみおしていますでも、お好きなよしてください。

It's inherently going to sound a little off because that's not how one would
typically express such a desire in Japanese/Japanese culture. Before we get to
how best to say what you mean, let's clean this up a bit:

> 僕は

Perfectly fine

> 連絡を出来ますと

First, we tend to use **が** when using the potential form of a verb (連絡ができる).
Second, _if_ we were using a verb such as 願う or 祈る we'd use V-potentialように,
but 楽しみにする uses を as a particle.

> でも

けど and が are generally your best bet for sentence-ending conjunctions when
looking to express "but." が is a bit more formal, so let's go with that.

> お好きなよしてください。

Almost! Remember that よ = ! and よう = way. As such, it should be お好き **なよう** に

We end up with something along the lines of:

> 僕は[相手の名前]が次に連絡できることを楽しみにしておりますが、お好きなようにしてください。

Here we run into the issue of cultural sensitivity (for lack of a better
term). If you say explicitly that you're looking forward to the next time that
they'll be able to contact you, you apply some pressure to the recipient to
make it so that they have the ability to correspond soon. This isn't the worst
thing in the world, but I think it'd sound more natural to say something along
the lines of "I look forward to our next opportunity to correspond" or
また連絡できる機会をお楽しみにしております because it takes the focus from your partner's ability
to reply and places it on an indefinite future opportunity. Similarly, saying
お好きなようにしてください afterwards sounds a little ツンデレ, like "I can't wait until we
talk about, but I do whatever you want because it's whatever." I'd probably
just end on the お楽しみ bit, but you could add something like 慌てて/急いで答える必要はありません
if you _really_ wanted to drive home that they don't have to rush. But again,
you're writing a letter in 2017 so I think the lack of speed is known to be
endemic to the technology.

> また連絡できる機会を楽しみにしております[が、慌てて答える必要はありません。]




First! The correct spelling here is actually 楽しみ **に** しております. To perhaps make
things more clear, the root phrase here is 楽しみにする, though I don't think I've
ever heard someone omit the お in front of 楽しみ. The phrase your friend gave you
is the humble equivalent of お楽しみにしています (おる = いる in 謙譲語｛けんじょうご}), which is
often appropriate when writing letters so let's go with that.

> He told me that in Japanese you don't really say 'I hope this' or 'I hope
> that'

Right. It's uncommon to say things like "I wish" or "I hope" in regard to
actions dependent on another's volition; typically one uses phrases like those
(ように願う, ように祈る) when speaking about things that can broadly be described as
determined by "fate" (getting a job, meeting the love of your life, getting an
A on a test), but you wouldn't say them directly to the people responsible for
determining them. So when you say:

> 僕は連絡を出来ますと楽しみおしていますでも、お好きなよしてください。

It's inherently going to sound a little off because that's not how one would
typically express such a desire in Japanese/Japanese culture. Before we get to
how best to say what you mean, let's clean this up a bit:

> 僕は

Perfectly fine

> 連絡を出来ますと

First, we tend to use **が** when using the potential form of a verb (連絡ができる).
Second, _if_ we were using a verb such as 願う or 祈る we'd use V-potentialように,
but 楽しみにする uses を as a particle.

> でも

けど and が are generally your best bet for sentence-ending conjunctions when
looking to express "but." が is a bit more formal, so let's go with that.

> お好きなよしてください。

Almost! Remember that よ = ! and よう = way. As such, it should be お好き **なよう** に

We end up with something along the lines of:

> 僕は[相手の名前]が次に連絡できることを楽しみにしておりますが、お好きなようにしてください。

Here we run into the issue of cultural sensitivity (for lack of a better
term). If you say explicitly that you're looking forward to the next time that
they'll be able to contact you, you apply some pressure to the recipient to
make it so that they have the ability to correspond soon. This isn't the worst
thing in the world, but I think it'd sound more natural to say something along
the lines of "I look forward to our next opportunity to correspond" or
また連絡できる機会をお楽しみにしております because it takes the focus from your partner's ability
to reply and places it on an indefinite future opportunity. Similarly, saying
お好きなようにしてください afterwards sounds a little ツンデレ, like "I can't wait until we
talk about, but I do whatever you want because it's whatever." I'd probably
just end on the お楽しみ bit, but you could add something like 慌てて/急いで答える必要はありません
if you _really_ wanted to drive home that they don't have to rush. But again,
you're writing a letter in 2017 so I think the lack of speed is known to be
endemic to the technology.

> また連絡できる機会を楽しみにしております[が、慌てて答える必要はありません。]

