SET PHRASES FOR WRITING LETTERS
Writing
SET PHRASES FOR WRITING LETTERS
Opening by thanking
Thank you for your letter of 22 January in which you…
We have received your letter of… telling us that…
Thank you for your letter of… informing us that…
Thank you very much for your inquiry about…
Thanking you for your letter of…, we…
Referring
I am writing with reference to…
I am writing in connection with…
With reference to…
With regard to…
Further to…
Giving/responding to good news
I am pleased to tell you…
I am delighted to inform you…
I am happy to advise…
We were delighted to hear that…
Giving/responding to bad news
I regret to tell you…
I am sorry to inform you…
We regret that…
We were sorry to hear that…
I was extremely sorry to learn from your letter of… of the problems you have experienced.
We were sorry to learn about the inconvenience you had to suffer
Problems, complaining
We were surprised to find that…
We found that…
I found that service was not up to the usual standard.
We have not yet received…
It appears there must have been some misunderstanding
I regret that I have to complain about…
We would like to point out that…
We wish to call your attention to…
You may probably have overlooked the fact that…
Responding to complaints
We appreciate your pointing out the error that was made…
Thank you very much for your comments.
We always welcome comments from our guests
Thank you for calling to my attention that…
I was disturbed to hear that you were unhappy with…
Apologising
We must apologise for…
We apologise for…
We are extremely sorry for losing…
that we lost…
We are sorry for the inconvenience you had to suffer.
Please accept our apologies for the problems caused by this error.
We will make immediate inquiries about the incident.
We assure that we will do our best to settle the matter immediately and to your satisfaction.
We hope that this has not caused you any inconvenience.
With apologies once again…
The problem will not be repeated.
Giving reasons
This is owing to…
due to…
as a result of…
because of
due to the fact that…
Saying what you can and cannot do:
We are able to…
We are unable to…
Inquiries
Would you kindly inform us about…
Please let me know as soon as possible…
I am writing to ask…
We would need information on…
We would like to know about...
if you could…
We are particularly interested in…
Requests
Please could you…?
We would be grateful if you could…as soon as possible.
We would appreciate it if you could…
Please let us know your decision by 5 February.
Please let us have a reply by…
Please send us written confirmation of this booking by…
Will you please confirm this booking no later than…
Please let us know whether these arrangements suit you.
Refusals
Unfortunately the… is not available on…..
Regrettably we cannot accept…
We regret not being able to offer…
We have been forced to…
Enclosing
Enclosed is a…
We have pleasure in enclosing…
I am enclosing the relevant brochure
Please find enclosed our latest price-list.
Closing
Please contact me if you require any further information
If you need any more information, please, do not hesitate to let me know
Should you have a complaint, please let us know immediately so that we can deal with the problem right there and then.
I hope you find this information of use and look forward to seeing you in the near future.
We look forward to your early reply.
Thank you for you cooperation.
Hoping to have the pleasure of welcoming you…, we remain
Speaking
SET PHRASES FOR SPEAKING
Beginning
Well, …
Actually, …
In fact,…
As a matter of fact,…
I would like to begin with…
I would like to begin by pointing out that…
There are three points I would like to make…
I would like to comment on the problem of…
The most important points seem to me to be…
On the one hand…
Ordering
First of all, we must bear in mind…
Firstly,…
Secondly,…
Thirdly,…
Then we must mention…
Finally,…
Introducing a new point
I would now like to turn briefly to the problem of…
The next issue I would like to focus on is…
Turning to…
Adding
In addition,…
Additionally,…
Furthermore,…
Moreover,…
Besides,…
I might add that…
One/Another/A further/An additional (major) advantage/disadvantage of… is…
Another positive/negative aspect of…
Balancing
On the other hand…
Although…, we mustn’t forget…
Despite/In spite of the fact that…, I still think…
Apart from…
However,…
Still,…
Introducing examples
Let me give an example…
To illustrate this point, let us consider…
This is shown by the fact that…
For example/For instance
Such as/like
In particular/Particularly
Especially
Explaining
In other words…
That is to say…
I mean…
To be more specific…
General
Generally/In general
Generally speaking…
On the whole…
In practice…
All things considered,…
In most cases…
It is often claimed that…
Most people/experts believe that…
Expressing causes
Owing to/Due to (the fact that)…
Because…
As/Since…
Expressing effect
Therefore…
As a result…
Consequently…
For the above mentioned reasons…
Expressing opinion
In my opinion…
To tell you the truth, I (firmly) believe/think…
I am convinced that…
To be honest with you, I’m sure/certain that…
As I see it,…
As far as I’m concerned…
As for me…
From my point of view…
It seems to me that…
I would say that…
Well, it’s common sense.
Expressing uncertainty
I’m not sure, but…
Well, it depends.
I’m afraid I don’t know it exactly, but…
As far as I know…
As far as I can remember…
Agreeing, partly agreeing, disagreeing
I completely agree.
I think you are (not) right.
I think we can accept your position on that.
There’s no doubt about it.
I agree in principle, but…
I’m uncertain about…
I’m not certain that…
I have doubts about…
I don’t completely agree with you on that.
I agree up to a point.
To a certain extent/degree
In a way
You are right, but…
I know what you mean, but…
You are mistaken.
I totally disagree with you.
I’m afraid I can’t accept that/your point of view.
I’m sorry that’s unacceptable for me.
Interrupting
(I’m) sorry to interrupt you…
May I interrupt you for a moment?
I don’t want to interrupt, but…
Excuse me, but I’d just like to point out that…
Coming back to a point
As I was saying…
As I have mentioned…
Coming back to…
To return to…
Asking for clarification
Could you repeat that, please?
Could you explain that, please?
What do you mean by this?
When you say… do you mean that…?
Sorry?
I beg your pardon?
Sorry, I didn’t catch you.
I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.
This word is familiar to me, but I don’t remember the meaning. Could you explain it?
Asking for confirmation
Is that right?
Am I right?
Playing for time
How can I put it?
Let me think…
That’s a very interesting question.
That’s a difficult question to answer.
I’m glad you’ve asked that question.
Concluding
In conclusion, it seems that…
All things considered, it can be said that…
Taking everything into consideration, there is no doubt that…
Undoubtedly, we must say that…
To sum up, it is obvious that…
All in all, it may be concluded that…
So, obviously…
Others
As you know
The point is…
Anyway,…
By the way/That reminds me of…
Some further phrases for typical situations
I am at your disposal.
That sounds correct/good/great.
Would you mind if I asked…?
I strongly recommend that…
I advise you to…
In my view, the only solution is…
I propose that…
I wonder if I might suggest…
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to…?
Wouldn’t it be better to…?
What about…?
I see no objection to that.
I’m totally opposed to the proposal.
Frankly speaking, that’s out of the question
I’m afraid we can’t help you with that.
Have you taken into account…?
I was wondering if you’d thought of…?
There are other considerations, for example…
I wonder if you have considered…
I can assure you that…
We understand your concern about… and we assure you that we will make all our efforts to…
I would like to remind you that…
I wish to draw your attention to…
We cannot overlook the fact that…
We are prepared to…on condition that…
I think we could…
I don’t think we could…, unless…
We are ready to…
We are willing to…
I believe we can…, if…
Is that acceptable?
Would that be acceptable?
Would that be satisfactory?
We hope that this will be acceptable.
I think that would be perfectly acceptable.
In that case, we should…
That seems to be a reasonable compromise.
I’ll think it over and we’ll get back to it.
.JPG)
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