ฝึกพูดภาษาอังกฤษด้วยเทคนิค Shadowing จากวิดีโอ: Work emails: Office English episode 1

Emails, should they be formal, friendly?

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Emails, should they be formal, friendly?

It can be difficult to know.

More formal than informal, although at times you might get a smiley face from me.

If it's someone that I've never spoken to before, then it's more formal.

But I'd still probably say hi rather than dear.

You know, those technicalities of when to write kind regards and when to write best wishes.

Today on Office English we're learning the best language for emails,

whoever you're sending them to.

Hello and welcome to a brand new business podcast series,

Office English, from BBC Learning English.

I'm Pippa.

And I'm Phil.

And in this series we will be guiding you through the trickier areas of business language

and discussing some useful words and phrases for you to use in the office or wherever you work.

Business language can be tricky,

even for native speakers of English,

and the workplace is changing all the time with new technology and more people working from home.

So we're here to talk about some of the techniques and phrases that we use at work.

At BBC Learning English, we're all fluent English speakers working in a British cultural context.

So that's the situation we have the most advice for.

But we'll try to point out where things might be a bit different in different workplaces around the world.

This first episode is all about emails.

We've already heard from BBC colleagues that not everyone agrees on how we should write emails.

But what do you think, Phil?

Should an email sound like a letter?

Probably not.

Everything with email depends on the situation,

depends on who you're writing to and why,

but I think an email is usually a lot less formal than a letter.

Yes, I agree.

I would say I'm quite informal in most of my emails,

but as you say, it depends on who I'm emailing.

So in this episode, we're going to look at how to address emails,

some useful email phrases and how to sign off,

depending on who you're sending the email to.

OK, so first off, the email greeting.

What phrases are we looking at here, Pippa?

OK, so the first phrase we could use to start an email would be to say,

Dear Phil, what do you think about that?

I do use dear.

Sometimes.

It's not the one I use most.

But I do use it,

and I'll tell you when I use it.

I use it when I'm writing an email to someone I've not written to before

or someone who I'm a little bit scared of

or maybe someone who's very important or they're just very serious

or if someone wrote to me

and they use dear I'd look at what they've said

and sort of mirror it I'd do the same back

so I do use dear but it's not the one I use most often because I think in in an email,

it sounds a bit formal.

Yes, I agree there's nothing wrong with saying dear Phil nobody would think

that that was bad English I use it sometimes

if I had to write an email on behalf of a company

so you know a more formal email that's not from me

but from the company that I represent

and what I might use for a more personal email to a colleague or something is just to say hi or hello.

Yeah, and actually this is the one that I use the most.

I think 90% of my emails probably start with hi.

Definitely with someone I know, I would use hi.

If I'm not worried about who I'm writing to in any big way,

then I would use hi.

It's not formal, but in an email,

it's not very informal either, I don't think.

Yes, and certainly in the UK we're more and more informal at work.

So emails sound more and more like text messages.

Not completely, but saying hi or hello doesn't feel out of place.

One thing that I like to say sometimes

if I'm not sure whether to be formal or informal is to start my email with good morning or good afternoon.

What do you think about that?

I think that's a really nice way to do it

because it can sound kind of friendly

but it can also sound kind of formal you can sort of see it in two different ways.

Yes, if you sort of said good morning to someone when you were speaking that would sound quite formal.

It makes me think of being at school

and you would say sort of good morning miss or good morning sir to the teacher.

What about emails where you don't know the name of the person Phil,

what would you do then?

Well yes, we've got all these formula for using in letters like to whom it may concern

or dear sir or madam but they often sound a bit cold

and a bit unfriendly it does depend on the situation it

will be different in different countries it might be different in different industries

if you're a lawyer it might be different but i would probably use

if you use hi you don't actually need to say who

you're writing to you can just say hi yeah that's really useful

because when you say dear at the start of an email you need to put the name of the person

You can't just say, dear, I'm writing about.

That doesn't make sense in English.

So yeah, hi is really useful.

Again, good morning, good afternoon work as well because you don't need the name.

You can also hide the fact that you don't know the name of the person.

Sometimes people like you to know and have researched who you're messaging.

Sometimes that's not possible.

So just saying hi or hi there could work to be really friendly,

but mask the fact that you don't know their name.

Right, so we've started our email okay.

Next, let's look at a couple of popular email phrases and when we might use them.

100

OK, yes, so we've got this one here.

101

I'm writing to enquire about.

102

What do you think of that?

103

Well, that's kind of a formal way to state what your email is about.

104

It's something you might write in a letter.

105

We don't tend to use it in emails as much.

106

I might say, if if I was trying to be a bit friendlier.

107

I'm wondering if you can help me with,

108

instead of I'm writing to inquire about.

109

Yes, no, definitely.

110

It's something that sounds very normal in a letter but a bit strange in most emails I think.

111

Okay, we've got another one here.

112

Please find attached.

113

Yes, this is one that you see a lot

114

and we might use please find attached in an email to say

115

that we're sending a file or a link and so that's what it means.

116

A more informal way of saying this would just be to say,

117

here is the document you asked for,

118

here is the report, or here's the link to the podcast that you wanted to listen to.

119

That would be probably a more friendly way to write an email to a colleague

120

or someone at work that you know well rather than please find attached.

121

But I think please find attached has a place in an email occasionally.

122

Yeah, again, we were talking about formal ones,

123

maybe if you're representing a company or writing to people that you don't know.

124

A bit of a guide for emails can be that emails are a lot more like the way we speak to someone,

125

whereas letters are often, formal letters are often a bit different to the way that you talk to someone.

126

And finally, how should we say goodbye at the end of the email?

127

What are the options Pippa?

128

Okay so our first option would be to say something like you're sincerely or yours faithfully.

129

What do you think of that Phil?

130

Now this is the thing you always get taught to put at the end of a formal letter.

131

I remember at school being taught this

132

and I think it's probably still true for a formal letter but I think it's a bit unusual on an email,

133

even quite a formal email I think it's unusual to see this.

134

Yes, something

135

that people might use instead even in quite a formal email is to say something like kind regards

136

because it's quite formal but it still sounds polite.

137

Yeah I actually often just use regards a lot at the end of my email

138

and it's because it's in that sort of sweet spot of being a bit formal

139

but a bit friendly

140

and it means I don't have to think too much about what I'm putting at the end of an email

141

because I'm never sure.

142

I usually will say all the best or best wishes particularly

143

if it's to somebody I don't know well

144

or it's the first time I've emailed someone and

145

because it's quite formal but it's good to switch up the options especially

146

if you're emailing back

147

and forth a lot with somebody you don't want to keep writing the same thing I just find

148

that feels a bit strange to keep saying all the best especially

149

when they reply quickly and then you reply and it's just like seems like it has no meaning by that point.

150

Now this this might be a very English thing

151

because we do this a lot and often look for opportunities to do it

152

but if it makes sense to say thanks or many thanks at the end of the email I will often do that.

153

Yes or you could say thank you in advance

154

if you've asked for a favour in the email you can

155

end by saying thanks in advance just to remind them that you are asking for something

156

157

if you're just sending a note round to remind someone of

158

something thanks can be useful as well sort of thanks for reading.

159

And I guess something similar is this phrase here looking forward to hearing from you

160

and it's you're kind of suggesting that something is going to happen in the future,

161

but it's not an impolite way of doing it.

162

It's kind of a friendly way of saying you're expecting someone's reply and that you genuinely would like to hear from them.

163

Yes, I love that.

164

It's one of my favourites,

165

actually, looking forward to hearing from you.

166

And I will say that often when I've sent an email to somebody to ask for something,

167

I've not emailed them before and I would like them to reply,

168

but I'm not sure that they will reply.

169

So saying looking forward to hearing from you is a really friendly way to kind of encourage them to reply.

170

And it just kind of creates a strange expectation that they're going to come back to you on what you've asked for.

171

So deciding how formal to be in an email is tricky.

172

Let's listen again to what people at BBC Learning English had to say.

173

If it's someone that I've never spoken to before,

174

then it's more formal, but I'd still probably say hi rather than dear.

175

More formal than informal, although at times you might get a smiley face from me.

176

Smiley faces in emails.

177

What do you think, Phil?

178

If I'm not scared of the other person,

179

I'll often use a smiley face because it's friendly and you can communicate a lot with them.

180

But if it's a situation where you need to be a bit serious

181

or you need to show a lot of respect to the other person,

182

then it's probably not appropriate.

183

Yes, definitely.

184

I think smiley faces could be useful

185

if lots of people in your office use them because sometimes when you just write something down,

186

people don't quite understand the tone of what you're saying.

187

So they don't know if you're being friendly or serious or you're really annoyed.

188

So a smiley face can sometimes help with that.

189

but I would not use it frequently with or at all with people I don't know,

190

with people who are senior in a company.

191

Usually it's kind of about what the other person does.

192

So a good rule is when you're replying to somebody to try and match the way that they've written their email.

193

So if they're sending lots of smiley faces,

194

you're probably safe to send them back.

195

But if they're being really formal,

196

saying dear and kind regards,

197

it's useful to kind of match that in your reply.

198

Yes, so do look out for those things.

199

Look at how other people start their emails.

200

Look at whether they use smiley faces or not.

201

Also think, does it sound like someone talking?

202

If it does, it's probably quite informal and you're not going to have any problems doing the same thing back.

203

Yeah, unless their email is really rude,

204

then you might not want to be rude back to them.

205

That's all we've got time for on this episode of Office English.

206

Remember, you can find courses and activities to help with your English at work at bbclearningenglish.com.

207

Next time we'll be talking about meetings and how to get your ideas heard at work.

208

Bye for now, or should I say, all the best.

209

Kind regards.

210

Bye.

211

Thank you.

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