Hi I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident English and welcome to your Confident
English Wednesday lesson. Now most weeks we do focus on skills that are essential
for speaking English with confidence and fluency but this week we're going to
shift our focus a little bit and work on writing, specifically writing emails and
how to close or finish an email. Now just a quick note: if emailing is something
very useful to you in your English skills - maybe you email often in English
at work. I do have several other lessons on the topic of emails such as Seven
Rules for Professional Emails and How to Avoid Other Common Mistakes and you can
find all of those lessons also include links to those other lessons below this
video. But let's focus today on the right and wrong way to close an email. This is
the final impression someone will have of you and there are definitely right
and wrong ways to do it. And we'll look at two situations: situations that are
more business professional or formal and some more casual, very friendly ways to
end an email. Now two quick rules about emails: 1. always use a closing. Always.
It is considered unprofessional, maybe even rude, if you don't include a closing.
If it's your mom, if it's your best friend who is an English speaker or
someone that you email multiple times a day, then maybe you could avoid using a
closing. But in every other email you want to look professional
you want to look friendly, so use a closing. And the second rule is your
closing should match the formality of the email. If you're writing a business
email to a new client you should use a closing that is appropriate for a
business email and if you're writing to your new English-speaking neighbor then
you can use a more casual closing. Let's imagine a
more formal situation first: perhaps you are sending an email to arrange a date
and a time for a job interview or you are going to meet a brand-new client. It
is a business professional email. Here are a few great ways to end that email:
kind regards. Always professional, very friendly. Regards. Short, direct, but still
appropriate. Warm regards. Again very friendly but honestly this one is maybe
best used when you already know the person. It's still a formal email, it's a
formal business contact but you've already met them before.
And finally sincerely. This one sometimes for people feels a little bit too formal
its more common in a business letter but if you're writing to a total stranger
for example, you're writing about a job interview, it's okay to be really formal
even in an email and sincerely could be appropriate. Now if you're sending an
email to someone for work who you know well, you've met them several times but
it's still a work email, we don't need to be so formal. We can be a little bit more
casual but we still want to be professional as well so here are a few
examples: best or best regards. Again we could use warm regards. This is for someone
you already know. Or even cheers. Now this one is interesting because it's more
common among British English speakers or Australian English speakers. To be honest
I never use this closing. It's not natural to me but it is to many English
speakers so if it feels natural to you then feel free to use it.
And finally, if it's Friday and you're writing to the people you know in your
office end your email with have a weekend. Everyone loves to be reminded
that the weekend is almost here so you could use that as well. Those are all
fantastic ways to end an email that sounds professional and friendly but now
let's look at some examples that are not correct. These are examples that you
should avoid using in your emails. To be really honest, they're just not
appropriate for professional situations. Yours truly or yours faithfully. This
just feels too personal or too intimate. Have a blessed day. With this word
'blessed' it has a little bit of a religious feeling to it and
religion is not appropriate for a business professional situation, so it is
best to avoid this closing. Thanks or regards when you spell it as an
abbreviation, as I have here, not appropriate. We don't abbreviate closings
in professional emails. So you might be wondering: do I really need to use a
closing every time I send an email? Most of the time, yes. But there's one
exception. Imagine that you're at work and you send an email to the same person
every day and maybe you've sent them an email and now it is a chain email. A
chain email is when there are many different responses on the same email.
Maybe you ask a question, someone responded, then you gave your response,
they asked another question and it just continued. And now there are 20 emails
inside this one email. That's a chain email. Okay, after the first few emails
you can start to stop using a closing. Honestly, that's okay. It gets a little
bit too much to be honest but that's really the only
exception. Again the goal is to look professional all the time and a closing
in your email will help you do that. And that is it! You now have all the examples
that you need for professional, friendly closings in an email and some examples
that you should avoid. So now I'd like to hear from you: if you email in English
regularly - either just for fun with your personal contacts or professionally - what
continues to be the most challenging for you? I know that it can be stressful,
frustrating, it takes time to think about the right things to say, so what is the
most challenging for you? I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments. And,
as always, you can share with me in the comment section just below this video. I
do read and respond to every comment so feel free to let me know what is
challenging or frustrating for you when it comes to emails in English. And with
that, have a fantastic week. Enjoy your Wednesday and I will see you next week
for your Confident English lesson.