Readymade sentences?...

[yorugua-teuton]

Hi Teachers, one of my students (jobless adults doing a "Bürokommunikation mit EDV und Schwerpunkt English" course) asked me for readymade introductory sentences for the different Business Letters (sales, enquiries, orders, acknowledgments and so on). Never worked with such, but the Headmaster called me to her office and made special emphasis on the subject.
A lot of "googling" brought me nowhere, and in my materials I have nothing resembling readymade sentences. Any ideas where I could get something?
Greetings from germany.

[Andrew Patterson]

Not just opening sentences, but also closing:

I got these using a search for "plain English letters." You should find quite a lot in plain English websites. The Plus series of books is good for set phrases too, but isn't a business book.

http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/ ... s/?view=uk

http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/ ... s/?view=uk

[yorugua-teuton]

Thanks Andrew... somehow I believe what they (headmaster and student) meant was something like the following:
We have been asked to submit to you...
Please quote for the supply of...
As arranged by phone, we are sending...
Much to our surprise we learn from your letter that ...
Please inform us by ... if you agree to our proposal.

These I made up myself thinking about different cases and how I'd answer myself. Don't know if these would be called "readymade" sentences nor if they could be called "set phrases". What I do believe is anyone who reaches a certain degree of proficiency in any language should be able to come up with such sentences without them ever have been specially taught.
I have made a short catalogue of such sentences in the past few hours without really knowing if they are "standards" in business writing. What do you think about it?

[Andrew Patterson]

Actually, I am a fan of ready made sentences. You are quite right that a student can come up with these themselves, but why should they? Or if they do come up with their own, have them memorise their own set phrases.

These are routine things. If you go into an exam and are asked to write a letter, theoretically you only need to plan the middle. Typically a letter is 4 or 5 paragraphs long. So the planning might go like this:

Letter of complaint:
Standard layout
Intro - Set phrases
Para 2 major complaints - (list them and link them)
Para 3 minor complaints - (list them and link them)
Para 4 set phrases.

Now write your letter. No problem.

Now there's another of my gripes. A piece of writing we are told has a beginning middle and end. We are often told. The beginning is usually one paragraph, so is the end. The middle is in many cases 2-3 but nobody seems to teach how to divide up the middle. There are obvious ways to do it, though as above.

[yorugua-teuton]

Nice layout Andrew, and yes I agree with you in that usually no one teaches how to divide the middle section of a letter... I do try though.

[Andrew Patterson]

I would be interested in seeing your set phrases as I am now teaching for the LCCI exam 25% of the marks of which are for a business letter.

If you come up with some more, could you post them here. Thanks.

I will post some as I find them too.

[Showem]

http://www.esl.about.com/cs/onthejobeng ... letter.htm A nice set of phrases for letter writing from esl.about.com. If you look at the links they provide below, you'll see there is also a good page (with set phrases) for making and answering enquiries. That should put you on the right start.

I was going to say that I wouldn't bother trying to teach the middle parts of a letter, as they would probably know it already. But as they are jobless, they perhaps won't know. In that case, look for information on letter writing that is directed at native speakers, rather than English learners, and adapt as necessary.

Grüß aus München,
Andrea

[yorugua-teuton]

http://www.esl.about.com/cs/onthejobeng ... letter.htm A nice set of phrases for letter writing from esl.about.com.

Thanks for this. I'll surely visit the site.

In that case, look for information on letter writing that is directed at native speakers, rather than English learners, and adapt as necessary.

As fpr this, it is exactly what I always try to do. Usually satisfactorily, but I was asked for this one particular student to work mor with set sentences, which I totally dislike, and to work harder on collection letters (1, 2, and 3 reminder as they are called nowadays). And for the next course I've been asked to get newer material.
Grüße aus Berlin
Alex

[yorugua-teuton]

http://www.esl.about.com/cs/onthejobeng ... letter.htm

Hi Andrea, the page you mention will not open while using Konqueror under linux. Will try later to open it with mozilla. But I think the site has been written for windows users. Probably it will not run correctly if you use any other browser as IE.
A pity, because it is one of the sites I'd really like to see...
Alex

[yorugua-teuton]

I would be interested in seeing your set phrases as I am now teaching for the LCCI exam 25% of the marks of which are for a business letter.

Hi Andrew, here a first bunch of my set phrases. If you come up with some I haven't posted I'd appreciate it if you post them. Corrections are welcome.
General Purpose
a.- Thank you for your letter received on ...
b.- We were pleased to receive your letter of ...
c.- As arranged by phone, we are sending ...
d.- Referring to our telephone conversation of the ...
e.- On reviewing our files we notice ...
Answers
a.- Please quote for the supply of ...
b.- We thank you for your enquiry of ... and are pleased to quote as follows: ...
c.- Thank you for your quotation of ...
d.- Thank you for your order dated ...
e.- Enclosed is our statement for the quarter ended ...
f.- We enclose our cheque for EUR ... in payment for the goods supplied on ...
Enquiries
a.- We require the following information (urgently): ...
b.- I would be grateful if you could supply us with the following information at your earliest possible convenience: ...
c.- Could you provide us the following data:
d.- We would be pleased to receive ...
e.- I have enclosed a questionnaire which I would ask you to complete as soon as possible.
Supplying Information
a.- As requested, we enclose ...
b.- We are happy to supply you with ...
c.- Yo requested a copy of ...
d.- We have pleasure in providing ...
e.- Please find enclosed a copy of our latest ...
I have some more set phrases for expressing regret, apologies, complaints, expressing gratitude, making inquiries and offers, reminders, general closings and further closings. Any interest on them too?
Greetings,
Alex

[Showem]

Do you really have no opportunity to use Explorer? I mean, talk about a reason to stick with Bill. About.com is a huge resource for lots of different topics. I'm sorry, I won't paste the info here, because I'm sure it's under copyright.

[yorugua-teuton]

Do you really have no opportunity to use Explorer? I mean, talk about a reason to stick with Bill. About.com is a huge resource for lots of different topics. I'm sorry, I won't paste the info here, because I'm sure it's under copyright.

I'll try to take a look at the mentioned site next month. I'll be teaching an intensive course, 7 hours a day. I think I do have some breaks though, and if so I'll really visit the site. At home I've banned Bill's product out of all my computers. I was fed up with the continuous crashes, Norton's impossibility to keep really every virus, troyan and so forth out of my system, and, and....,and so on. The list is really long. Linux has some minor drawbacks, not because linux were no good, but because web designers don't usually work as hard as they should to make their sites really usable for all browsers and operating systems. Otherwise, no system crash downs, no virus, no worms... I'm really happy with the system. For almost every application I used with Bill's product I have an open source one which does the same just as good, some even better.

[Andrew Patterson]

Thank you for those examples, Yorugua, but

Thank you for your letter received on ...

I would have thought that the date sent is more important. If you want to say the date that you received it if this is important, how about:

Thank you for your letter of [date x], which we received on [date y].

Also, "We enclose our statement for the quarter ended," is possibly clearer than, "Enclosed is..."

Keep them coming.