How to Write Informal Business Emails in English.mp4

This video uses two model informal business emails to look at who we write informal business emails to, why we write them, and to study the features of informal business emails. Brought to you by If you find this video useful, please subscribe to my channel and goto www.mybusinessenglish.com.

In this video we are going to look at people and purpose - that is who we might write an informal business email to, and why we might write an informal business email

We'll use two model emails (show) to show you the common features (show)
and explain the structure of informal business emails

Let's think about people: we write informal emails where we have a good working relationship with the reader. This could mean close colleagues we deal with every day (P), or people from other companies that you have regular contact with (P). Here I am talking more about if you are dealing with people from English speaking nations, but if not, for example you are a Korean writing to a Swede, then the expectations of politeness, friendliness and formality may be different.
Apart from people, we also have to think of the purpose - why we are writing, and if we know the person well then for most business purposes we can use the informal style. But there are some times when it is better to use the formal style, for example for quite serious and rare purposes such as to resign (P)
Managers may use more formal styles to inform staff (hat means writing to groups) about performance reviews for example or of changes to company structure.
Here is our first model, which is an informal email where the purpose is to ask for something, that is to make a request.
First I start with a subject line which is as concise (or short) as possible while still being complete. All emails should have concise but complete subject lines, whether informal or formal.
Now comes the greeting which uses the informal Hi,
This could be replaced with Hello which is a little more neutral
Notice that I am using no comma after the name. This is common for informal emails especially. This is called open punctuation. The sign-off at the end should then also have no comma.

Using commas is not wrong of course, but always be consistent, either no commas for both Hi Brian and regards or a comma after both.
As the writer knows Brian well we are going to start with some small talk, which is usually about the recent past - as in this example, How was your holiday? or about the present, for example How are You?

It's quite common to state our purpose using the word just in informal emails - so in this case we are leaving out the subject I and auxiliary verb am. The word just is a downtoner - which means it makes things seem smaller so when you use just in your purpose it should be a fairly short email, or a smallish request -- not a ten pager.
We also used contractions - so you're not you are

Informal doesn't mean impolite, so in this case the standard could you please request form is used, and anything longer, like I'd really appreciate it if you could... would seem too formal for this size request and this person that we know well... if you are too polite you can seem formal and distant, which can make you appear rude.

So Could you please? is a good all-round request form for many people and many purposes.

Now we close the email - and usually with a positive message pointing to the future, and again we see ellipsis - here we are leaving out the subject (I).
Our sign off is an informal to neutral regards (for Britain and Australia you might write Cheers,) but this is less known for American readers. Regards will work everywhere and for both informal and neutral styles. Open punctuation or no comma is used again.
In our second model we'll study the response from Brian.

The same subject line, informal HI and open punctuation is used and then, Brian replies to the small talk topic. In many cases a more general small talk opening such as How are you? will be ignored by the person replying, but it is more polite to respond, and if the small talk question is specific and directed to a less common event such as a holiday, it would be rude not to respond.

Here it gets really interesting. You can see that we are using a more spoken style of vocabulary for example in our positive response to the request - no problem, and we often use the dash to connect ideas and clauses where in more formal writing we would need commas, semi-colons, colons or full stops or periods or have to link with conjunctions like and or but. The dash really makes life a lot easier.

Видео How to Write Informal Business Emails in English.mp4 канала mybusinessenglish