Writing: Personal letter

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• vmbo t, mavo, havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 3-5

Writing: Personal letter

Writing skills 

• No 'gonna' and 'wanna'
• No swearing: NOT EVER!
• No abbreviations  like 'cuz', 'tho'
• No contractions: use I am instead of I'm, It is instead of It's 

Writing skills 

• Use capitals when starting a sentence
• 'I' also has a capital letter (just saying)

FORMAL VS INFORMAL

formal speech	informal speech
- unknown listener	- friends, family, etc.
- pay attention to what you're saying	- speak rapidly - use certain slang
- sound professional

FORMAL VS INFORMAL

• allowed in informal speech
• almost unavoidable
• never allowed in writing! 

formal speech	informal speech
going to	gonna
want to	wanna
have got to	gotta
give me	gimme
don't know	dunno
let me	lemme

formal speech	informal speech
I got you	gotcha
you	ya
I am not	ain't
something	somethin'
didn't know anybody	didn't know no one (-) (-)

Structure

-In een informele brief hoeft het adres er niet bij

-De datum staat onder jouw adres, let op hoe je het noteert!

- Schrijf een passende openingszin.

- Maak gebruik van alinea's.

- Sluit af met een passende zin en groet en daaronder komt jouw naam te staan.

904

Bron: www.mentone-educational.com

Salutation (opening) 

Dear Amy,

Hello Lenny,

Hi Yur,

Don't forget to add the comma. 

Examples of Opening Sentences

How are you?

How have you been?

I hope you are doing well.

It’s great to hear from you. 

Many thanks for your e-mail/letter. 

Body

• State your reason for writing (this will be in the assignment as well)
• Ask about the person you are writing to 
• Invite the person to write back

Closing

I am looking forward to seeing you.

I can't wait to hear from you. 

See you soon. 

Signatures

Best wishes,

Best,

Kindly,

Kind regards,

Best regards,

Lots of love,

Love,

Mind your punctuation!