Are you spending too much time writing your emails in English? Well relief is here! Because today, I’m going to give you some perfect phrases that you can use for both formal and informal situations - that’s going to make your life a lot easier. If you're new here, I'm Maria. I'm a former marketing director and MBA from the US.


So let’s just say, I have written a lot of business emails in my life. And now I want to help you to do the same. Ok first things first! We need to choose the appropriate greeting for our email. Today, we’re just going to keep things simple. I’m just going to give you one sentence for formal emails and one sentence for informal emails.


Dear followed by Ms. or Mr. and then the person’s last name is really just used in extremely formal situations, and to be honest it's not really very common in the US. “Dear” followed by the person's first name is also a little more formal, but it's always safe if you don't know the person or if you’re not really sure about the level of formality.


Otherwise, Hello or Hi followed by the person’s first name is probably the most common. Ok so what’s next? If you’re the one writing first, and not replying to someone’s email, it’s usually good to be a little social, a little friendly. So we need to begin our email with a polite sentence. We often use the word hope in these opening lines.


The most common and tried and true sentence is I hope this email finds you well. Now it’s a little overused to be honest, but it’s always safe and it's always very professional. Now If you know the person pretty well, in more informal situations, you can just say hope all is well or hope your week is going well, you don’t need to use the word I, I is implied.


Now, super important. The very next thing that you need to write is a sentence explaining the reason for your email. Why are you writing to this person? Here are some good ways to do this. The most formal would be I’m writing with regard to, so we need a noun next. The less formal option would be I’m reaching out about.


To reach out means to contact someone, to get in touch with someone. We need a noun as well, we reach out about something. Now, maybe your reason for writing is to follow up with someone about something or to give them something that they’ve asked for. You can start with as discussed, that's probably the most formal.


Or you can say I’m following up with you about, and again we need a noun next. Now, a very common reason for writing an email is because somebody wrote you first! So you’re replying to theirs. If you’re not the first one writing, and you’re just replying to somebody’s email, you can start your email with thank you for your email, that’s the most formal.


And less formal, would be something like thanks for followed by a noun, thanks for your email, thanks for the update, thanks for letting me know. Scheduling meetings are a super common reason for sending and receiving emails, so let's take a look at some good sentences you can use for that. Most formally, we’d say I’d like to schedule a meeting too.
Informally, you could just say Let’s set up a meeting too. In business English we use the phrasal verb to set up quite a bit, it just means to schedule. Set up a meeting, set up a conference call. If you want to ask about someone’s availability, words like convenient and available are used a lot. To be free is more informal, and that just means to be available.


And more informally, to make it means to be able to attend. If something works, that means it’s ok for me. A calendar appointment or invite is what you send or receive to schedule the meeting. If you need to change the date or the time of the meeting, verbs like move, reschedule, postpone, cancel are all commonly used.


And the verb to move means to reschedule, by the way. If you’re attaching something to your email, the most formal way to express that would be please find attached. Or, you can just refer to what you're attaching and then just say see attached. If you need to make a suggestion in your email, the most formal way to do that would be to say I propose or I suggest.


Or, less formally, you can begin with how about, that would be appropriate if you're talking to someone on your team, for example, or somebody that you work with pretty closely. If you need to ask someone to do something, it's always best to use modal verbs. I think these are appropriate both for formal and informal situations, it’s just polite business language.


The verb would come in handy here, Would it be possible to. Review the document this week. Could you review the document this week? If you don’t understand something that somebody wrote, and you need them to clarify what they meant, we’ve got some options here. I think these work both formally and informally.


Could you provide more details about, or more simply, to clarify, and then ask your question. Ok so we're coming to the end of our email now, and it's now time to make the next step clear. Is there something that you need from the other person? Is there something that they can expect from you? If you need something from the other person, the most common phrase is probably I look forward to hearing from you.


So you usually use that sentence when you’re waiting for somebody’s opinion or some other kind of information from them. Just watch out for a common mistake here. We have to have that verb be in the ING form. I look forward to hearing from you. More informally, you can always end with a direct question. I really like doing that in informal situations.


I think ending with a question is a good way to get somebody’s attention. So you could just say, What are your thoughts? It’s often good to let somebody know that you’re available for questions. You’re available for help. So there are two pretty standard sentences we usually use here. More formally, Should you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.


And more informally, let me know if you have any questions. And we are almost done with our email, there’s just one more thing we need to do. And that’s to choose the appropriate sign off. Best regards is a little more formal. I personally alway use best, and I think it works for both formal and informal situations.


So that’s pretty versatile! Alright we covered a lot of ground today. I go into a lot more depth and a lot more detail about good email writing in my classes. So you can feel free to go to my website englishtoexcel.net for more info. And if you want to be sure that your business emails don’t include any common English grammar mistakes, check out this video right here.


Alright guys. As always, thank you so much for watching. I appreciate you. And I’ll see you in this video next.