Rules for writing letters for mid and high level
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General rules for letter-writing
It’s good fun to write. It’s especially good fun to make new friends. And… your English will improve as well!
Have fun writing English letters!
For your security, you should not give out your personal address or phone number to someone until you are sure you can trust the person. If you meet your e-mail friend, make sure that the first meeting is in a public place, and if possible take a friend with you. If you are looking for a site to translate words you can use: http://dictionary.reference.com/translate/ http://www.foreignword.com/
1. Address sender
Blablastraat 70 3928 BL Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel. +31 (0)15 19873240 Email: B.lala@hotmail.com
2. Date
15 May 20…
3. Salutation
Dear Jack,
4. Body of the text Paragraph 1
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 3
5. Final
6. Closing 7. Name
How are you? It’s been a long time since I heard from you. I hope everything is fine. I’m ok! At school we learned how to write a letter in English. We practise a lot by sending emails to other schools, which is really good fun! The football season started last weak. Tomorrow we will have our first game. That is really exciting! I hope we will win. Maybe I will be able to visit you at the end of our summer holiday in August. Would you like me to pay you a visit? If you do, could you let me know soon? It would be great fun if you could show me around London I look forward to hearing from you soon. Best regards, Nina
1. Address sender Blablastraat 70 3928 BL Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel. +31 (0)15 19873240 Email: B.lala@hotmail.com
Put your own address in the upper left-hand corner. Don’t use any commas or dots in this address. -
Don’t mention your name in the address.
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You can write down your phone number and email address (but you don’t have to). If you write include your phone number you have to put the international dialling code of your country in front of it. For the dialling coder of your country, see: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijst_van_landnummers_in_de_telefonie
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After the sender’s address skip one line.
2. Date 15 May 20… (This is the easiest way!)
May 15, 20…. 15th May 20.. May 15th, 20..
Put the date on the left-hand side of the paper. Dates have to be written with a capital! January
March
May
July
September
November
February
April
June
August
October
December
3. Salutation Dear Jack
After having written down the date: skip one line. Put the salutation on the left-hand side of the paper. Put a comma after the salutation. In emails you can start with ‘hello’ of ‘hi’.
4. Body of the text After the salutation, skip one line. It’s a good idea to divide the text into paragraphs. Write about one subject in each paragraph. Between paragraphs skip one line.
5. Final After the body of the text, skip one line. Most people end their letter with a fixed sentence. It’s easy to start the sentence with: “I look forward to”. The following verb has to end with “ing”. Like in: I look forward to hearing from you soon. Other possibilities are: I look forward to meeting you. I look forward to your reply. I hope you will write back soon. I hope to hear from you soon. Please, write back soon!
6. Closing After the final sentence, skip one line. Start the closing greeting with a capital, you can add a comma at the end (but you don’t have to). Possibilities: -
Yours
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Best wishes / With best regards
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Regards / Best regards
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Kind regards / With kind regards
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Love (You use love only if you already know somebody very well and have built up a friendship!!)
7. Name After the closing expression, skip one line. You can write down your first- and last name, or only your first name!