Professional Documents
Culture Documents
If you do not know the name of the person you are writing
to, begin with Dear Sir or Dear Sir or Madam or Dear
Madam and end your letter with Yours faithfully, followed
by your full name.
Vocabulary Tip
The word staff refers to all the people working for an
organisation. To talk about one person, you need to say
member of staff or employee: I recently had a problem with
a member of staff in your company (or an employee in your
company or one of your staff). NOT I recently had a problem
with a staff in your company
Apology words and phrases for letters
How to break the bad news
Unfortunately,
Im afraid that
Another nice phrase for more informal letters is
Ive got some bad news to break/tell you
A simple apology
If it is a small problem you may just need to say sorry. You
should see though that you need to think about whether you
want to use but/that/for
Im sorry but Im sorry but I wont be able to come to
the party
Im sorry that Im sorry that I broke you mug
1
Grammar Tip
Note that the phrasal verb to look forward is always followed
by to + ing: I am looking forward to seeing you soon. In
formal letters we use the simple present tense rather than
the present continuous: We look forward to hearing from
you.
Exam Tip
Be careful with the spelling of the following words: graceful,
sincerely, faithfully. Register is important when writing a letter.
Make sure the language you use is not too informal if the letter is a
very formal one, or too formal if the letter is to someone you know
well.
Structure
Dear X
Paragraph 1 Explain why you are writing the letter
Paragraph 2 Bullet point 1
Paragraph 3 Bullet point 2
Paragraph 4 Bullet point 3
Closing remark (e.g. I look forward to hearing from you etc.)
Ending (Yours sincerely, Kind regards, All the best etc.)
Your name
Correct tone
Formal and you dont know the name:
Dear Sir/Madam
Yours faithfully
Formal and you do know the name:
Dear [Mr(s). Family Name]
Yours sincerely
Semi-Formal:
Dear [First Name]
Kind regards
Informal:
Dear [First Name]
Best wishes