Search results for 'tag:Formal letters tag:End a letter' matching tags 'Formal letters' and 'End a letter'

Re: Shall I write my name and address at the top right side of my Motivation Letter..?

Tanit — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:41:02 GMT

Hi Tamguatlay,

I am not Nona, and you probably won't trust me because I'm not a native speaker of English. I only wanted to share my experience, which can add something to the topic.

As an ESL student of BrE, I was taught to end a letter with "Your faithfully" when it addresses an unknown addressee (i.e., when it begins with "Dear Sir or Madam") and with "Yours sincerely" when you know his/her name (i.e., the letter begins with "Dear Mr/Ms/Miss [+surname]").

However, during my year in the UK, I saw the expression "Your faithfully" only twice, in two letters written by members of my University staff. Funnily enough, the first one began with "To whom it may concern" (another extremely rare expression ) and the second with "Miss [+ my surname]", two opening formulae I was taught NOT to use, when having classes ... none of them actually began with "Dear Sir or Madam"! Both the letters I mentioned (I've still got them) come from a University, so I'm obviously not talking about illiterate writers.

Another thing I can say is that my British teacher on the one hand strongly advised us to close formal letters in our CAE and CPE exams with "Yours faithfully" or "Yours sincerely" (depending on the circumstances) because those were the expression the examiners were looking for. On the other hand, he also warned us that these day most people, also in the UK, will close those letters with "Sincerely", "Regards", "Kind regards".

If my experience is anything to go by, what we learn sometimes can differ from what is actually done nowadays, just as Clive said.

Letter to a parent

shivanitn — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 12:17:33 GMT

how to start and end a letter to a parent who is upset about her child's placement in another class.Also what would be the header and footer of such a formal letter.

Writing a letter to a company

Eenuh — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 16:41:42 GMT

Hello,

I have a couple of questions about writing a letter to a company. This question has probably already been answered somewhere, but I have trouble finding it on here.

In this letter, I have to ask an air company to cancel one of our reservations. We accidentally did a double booking, which now leaves us with a one way trip from Brussels to Barcelona -and- a trip from Brussels to Barcelona and back again. If we can cancel the first trip, then that would mean the company has eight seats to sell again, so it's in their benefit. A refund is not necessary, but would of course always be nice if possible.

My question now is, how can I put this in a decent, formal letter? And how do I begin and end a letter when I don't have any person to direct it to?

As you can see, my English really isn't all that great and all help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Eenuh