VOA慢速英语2019--Greetings in Letters and Emails

 

Today on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Yehia in Yemen.

He writes:

Question:

“Could you explain what are the differences between ‘Hi,’ ‘Dear sir,’ ‘Hello,’ ‘Greetings’ and other greetings? Thank you!!” - Yehia, Yemen

Answer:

Dear Yehia,

To answer your question, I need more information. Are you writing a business letter or an email? Also, how well do you know the person you are writing to? Let us look at a few possible situations.

You are writing to a stranger

When writing to someone you do not know, you usually begin a letter with “Dear” and the title of the person and their surname¹, or family name. Imagine you are writing a letter to congratulate Cori Gauff, the young woman who defeated Venus Williams at Wimbeldon on Monday. If you did not know the American teenager, you would start the letter this way:

Dear Ms. Gauff:

I am writing to congratulate you on your amazing victory at Wimbeldon.

You may have seen business letters that start with “Dear Sir” or “Dear Sir or Madam.” But those words are used when you do not know the name of the person who will receive the letter. It is always better to begin with the name of the person you are writing to. Use the term Ms. for females³ and Mr. for males before the surname. If you do not know whether the person is a male or female², you can use their full name: Dear Cori Gauff:

Punctuation⁴ is a little different: in business letters, you should use a colon⁵ after the greeting. In a personal letter, add a comma after the greeting.

Writing to a friend

Now, imagine you are a family friend of Cori Gauff. In that case, you can begin your letter less formally and use her given name:

Dear Cori,

I was so happy to see you on television Monday. You were awesome⁶!

You might even use the tennis player’s nickname⁷, which is Coco:

Dear Coco,

In emails and text messages, it is also common to see the greeting “Hi” or “Hello.” These are fine if you know the person well and have been in contact with them recently. The word “greetings” sounds like the opening of a form letter, or a mass mailing, so you should not use it in a letter to just one person.

To close a business letter, you can use “Sincerely,” followed by your name. Use your full name for someone you do not know, and your given name for someone you do know. To close a friendly letter, you can use “Yours,” or “Best Wishes,” followed by your given name.

And that’s Ask a Teacher!

I'm Alice Bryant.

And I’m Jill Robbins.

Words in This Story

greeting – n. a word or sign of welcome

title – n. a name that describes someone’s job; a word used to identify the person’s gender⁸

punctuation – n. the marks used in writing to separate sentences and to clarify⁹ their meaning

colon – n. a mark used to separate things in a list or an explanation

comma – n. a mark used to separate parts of a sentence or more or more things on a list

formally – adv. officially; following established rules or customs

awesome – adj. wonderful; surprising

form letter – n. a letter that has a standard form and is sent to many people

sincerely – adv. in a truthful way; with truth

1 surname   

n.姓；vt.冠姓

参考例句：

• Her first name is Sheila and her surname is Kane.她姓凯恩，名叫希拉。
• Wang is a very common Chinese surname.王是一个很常见的中国姓。

2 female   

adj.雌的，女(性)的；n.雌性的动物，女子

参考例句：

• We only employ female workers.我们只雇用女工。
• The animal in the picture was a female elephant.照片上的动物是头母象。

3 females   

n.雌性动物( female的名词复数 )；女人

参考例句：

• The male birds are more colourful than the females. 这种鸟雄性比雌性更加色彩艳丽。
• The males in the herd protect the females and the young. 兽中的雄性动物保护雌性动物和幼崽。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 punctuation   

n.标点符号，标点法

参考例句：

• My son's punctuation is terrible.我儿子的标点符号很糟糕。
• A piece of writing without any punctuation is difficult to understand.一篇没有任何标点符号的文章是很难懂的。

5 colon   

n.冒号，结肠，直肠

参考例句：

• Here,too,the colon must be followed by a dash.这里也是一样，应当在冒号后加破折号。
• The colon is the locus of a large concentration of bacteria.结肠是大浓度的细菌所在地。

6 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

7 nickname   

n.绰号，昵称；v.给...取绰号，叫错名字

参考例句：

• She called me by my nickname.她叫我的外号。
• Why do you fasten such a nickname on her?你为什么给她取这样一个绰号？

8 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

9 clarify   

v.澄清，阐明，使变得清晰；净化

参考例句：

• I am happy to clarify any points that are still unclear.我愿意说明任何仍然不清楚的地方。
• Can you clarify this long sentence?你能把这个长句子解释清楚吗？