Un prince nigérien avait 41 million de dollars à blanchir et si je l’aidais, il me donnerait 20%. J’ai fait le calcul et ça revenait à $8,200,000.00
Ka-ching!
Puis, par curiosité, j’ai continué à lire (vraiment juste par curiosité…of course).
C’était un contact fiable qui lui a donné mon nom et il me faisait totalement confiance. Il avait sur-facturé exprès des gros contrats d’État et voulait préparer sa retraite avec l’argent de trop.
Mais il y a eu un changement dans la situation et maintenant, il avait besoin de mon aide pour sortir tout cet argent du pays, avant que ça tombe entre des mauvaises mains.
Toi aussi, tu as reçu le même mail ?
Hmm…suspicious…
Tu as vu comme il a signé son mail ?
Yours faithfully,
Prince Chiedu Boglo
C’est sûr. Ce message, c’est un scam. Personne de crédible ne signe un mail “Yours faithfully,”
That sent up the red flags. Ça m’a mis en garde.
La formule de politesse en anglais m’a fait dire “Forget about it, Mr. Prince Chiedu.”
(OK, c’était aussi le fait que je ne connais pas de prince nigérien et encore moins un prince nigérien avec plein de sous à me donner, comme ça…).
Cette petite formule de politesse s’appelle the closing salutation en anglais. C’est une toute petite partie de ton mail, mais si dans tes mails de tous les jours tu utilises quelque chose comme
Sincerely yours, ou Thanks for your consideration, ça dit quelque chose sur toi.
- Que tu es un brin old-fashioned (veillote), ou
- Que tu manques de confiance
Oops. C’est surement pas ça l’effet que tu veux faire.
Alors, quelle formule de politesse en anglais utiliser pour finir tes mails ?
That’s what you’ll learn in this week’s episode of Speak Better, Feel Great TV:
What about you?
Tu utilises quelle formule de politesse à la fin de tes mails ?
Raconte dans les commentaires ! On verra quelle closing salutation est la préférée de The SBFG Community!
Thank you as always for reading, sharing and joining in!
Have a fantastic week in English,
Christina
More great stuff...
Clique l'image pour lire l'article. C'est presque magique !
I often end my emails : Thanks and have a great day!
So do I! Probably 80% of my emails end with that same expression! #GreatMindsThinkAlike 😉
Hi Ms. Rebuffet 😉
I often end my emails by something like: kinds regards or best wishes. So I don’t know if I’m up to date enough
I really like you weekly up dates by the way. Thanks a lot!
“Kind regards” (no -s on “kind”) and “Best wishes” are both fine. “Best wishes” is generally when your email is pleasant or has some good news, but both are up to date!
And thanks so much for the compliment! It’s really nice to read that! 🙂
Dear Cristina,
I use to end up my emails with “Kind or best regards”, depending on to whom I write.
Do you mean “Kind regards” or “Best regards”, or do you write “Kind or best regards”? One or the other is good, and very common, but I’ve never seen the two in one expression.
Is it possible to write all you tell, so I can keep the informations when I need them,
The best way to keep the information is to take notes! I always include the key vocabulary on the screen so that you can read and hear it, so don’t hesitate to pause the video and write the expressions down. You could even start your own SBFG Notebook and write the expressions from each video! Plus, writing is a good way to help the expressions go into your brain 🙂
I usually close my email to my coleague with best regards, but I will reconsider it and change in best ,or regards, as i understand, it’s a bit less formal. Thanks for the humoristic old fashioned scene! and thanks so much Christina for your weekly video
Hi Xavier! Good to see you here! Any of those are good, but I’d say with close colleagues or friends, maybe best regards is just a little formal. “Best” or “Regards”, like you said, would be good. And I’m glad you liked the old fashioned scene (nice use of the new expression in your comment 😉
The feather pen is actually from Shakespeare’s hometown Stratford-Upon-Avon. When I was in England for a teaching conference in April, a friend went to visit the town, and she brought me the pen as a present! I’ll tell her that it was useful!
Christina: I generally sign off with ‘ATB’ (as in ‘all the best’).
C’est assez passe-partout et semble plaire.
Hi Marc! I’m generally quite impressed when a French (or other nationality) signs off with an abbreviation like that! It makes me think they have some insider knowledge of English! 😉
Hi Christina,
Thanks to for bringing this to our tention, some expressions sound simple and normal while they may mean something else in our daily life at work.
Now here are two questions: my colleague always uses ” Many thanks ” it doesn’t matter to who he writes. isn’t neutral or doesn’t it sounds amateur?
another questions, what about expressions that are used in french to end an email, could you please tell us something about it?
Thanks
Hi Eric,
Hmmm, I don’t know if I would say that “Many thanks,” sounds amateur, but unless you’re really thanking someone for something it might be a little strange. But it’s definitely better than “Sincerely yours,” 🙂
For expressions used in French, I recommend you watch this video from Géraldine of Comme Une Française : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKPvnJ4lXOk
She can tell you better than me about writing emails in French!
Hi Christina, I do love your lessons, full of humor. I warmly recommend them to my friends wishing to improve their level in English. I always close my English emails by (best) (kind) regards. Thanks for confirming I’m right.
Hi Philippe, Thank you so much! I think that English lessons can be fun (and funny), even if we’re doing “serious” or business topics. You remember better that way 🙂 And thank you so much for recommending my videos to your friends! It really helps me a lot!
For closing your emails with Best regards, or Kind regards, you’re perfectly right. Those are probably the most common, most neutral closings.
I just had a look at the last 30 or so emails I sent and the expressions I used most often were:
All the best,
Best regards,
Thanks and have a great day,
You’re good!
Bonjour,
Je travaille depuis 27 ans chez Hewlett Packard au vu des differents echanges avec mes collègues du monde entiers ,je fini mes emails par regards.Au passage merci pour cette video avec un anglais parfaitement comprehensible et 100% intelligible.J’aurai adore avoir une prof d’anglais aussi interessante quand j’étais etudiant.
Regards
P BOUTREL
Hi Philippe,
Merci beaucoup pour ton message, très sympa ! C’est la 1ère message que lis ce matin, et ça me fait très plaisir !
Oui, “Regards,” (comme Kind regards, Best regards, etc.) sont des formules passe-partout, qu’on peut utiliser dans tous les mails sans se casser la tête 🙂
Tu es à HP à Grenoble ? Je demande car je viens mardi prochain pour faire une présentation là-bas ! On aura peut-être l’occasion de se rencontrer !
Have a good weekend,
Christina
What of a formal (cover) letter ? How do you sign off ? I usually use “Yours Sincerely”… Is it still of usage or rather old-fashioned ?
Merci d’avance,
Florify
Good question, Florify! For a cover letter, “Sincerely,” is most common in the US, and “Yours sincerely,” is most common in the UK (but both are acceptable in both countries). Also, notice that only the first word is capitalized (Yours sincerely, not Yours Sincerely,).
And also, on an English-language cover letter, you put Sincerely, – 4 lines of space – your typed name. And then you put your signature between “Sincerely” and your typed name. Like this:
Yours sincerely,
Christina Rebuffet
The formatting didn’t work in my example above…. It should be 4 lines of space at the end, but there are only 1 or 2 !
I usually use best regards or when someone has really helped me : warm regards. I love your lessons Christina. I just discovered them. And I love your country and your people as well. You are so friendly!!!!
Hi Véronique! Thanks so much for your lovely comments! You’ve made my (Thanksgiving) day! Both Best regards, and Warm regards, are good for the situations you described. And thanks for the Franco-American love! Right back at you! 🙂
Hi Christina,
my usual closing sentence is ” have a sunny day”(specially in UK) because my English is weak.
I would like to say “have a amazing day”, “have a special day”, “have an unforgettable day” but I’m not sure about it.What do you think?
Here in the USA, “Have a great day!” is used most often. “Have [an] amazing day” is often said. Note when to use ‘a/an’. ‘An’ is used before words that start with a vowel to make pronunciation easier to physically talk. Our tongues get tripped up on “a amazing”.
Here in the USA, “Have a great day!” is used most often. “Have [an] amazing day” is often said. Note correction when to use ‘a/an’. ‘An’ is used before words that start with a vowel to make pronunciation easier to physically talk. Our tongues get tripped up on “a amazing”, but you show this concerning “Have an unforgettable day”. Some days we want to forget, yet I think “memorable” is better, but not much better as “Have a special day”, which is cringe worthy having both positive and negative attachments.
“Enjoy!” is along these lines and succinct.
Hey Frank, Thanks so much for this valuable mini lesson! I’m sure a lot of people here in the community will appreciate it! Have a great day! 😉