LETTERS IN ENGLISH

It is not difficult to write letters in English. There are a few rules about how to begin and end different kinds of letter, and how to arrenge a letter on the page.

1.- Put your address at the top right-hand corner (house- number first, the street-name, the town, etc). Do not put your name above the address. Your name only comes at the end of the letter.

2.- Put the date under the address. There are several ways of writing the date, for instance, 21.9.16, or 21/9/16, or 21 September 2016, or September 21st, 2016.

3.- In a business letter, put the name and address of the person you are writing toon the left- hand side of the page (beginning one line lower than the ending of your own address).

4.- Put the "saludation" (Dear X) on the left of the first line, not in the middle.

5.- Begin the first sentence under the salutation.

6.- If you begin Dear Sir (s) or Dear Madam, finish Yours faithfully...

If you begin with the person´s name (Dear Mrs Smith), finish Yours sincerely... or (more informally) Yours... We sometimes use Yours truly instead of Yours faithfully/ sincerely. Friendly letters may begin with the first name (Dear Keith) and finish with an expression like Yours ever or Love.

7.- On the envelope, we put the first name before the surname. The first name may be written in full (Keith Parker), or we may use the initial (K. Parker). If the person has more than one first name, it is common to use only the initials (K.S. Parker). It is common to put a "title" (Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Dr,...) before the name. Except for Miss, these titles are sometimes written with a full stop (Mr., Mrs., ...) but not always in British English

8.- American usage is different from British in certain ways.