Vacation absence email message in English

Summer vacation is coming up just around the corner (arrive à grande vitesse)! And that means that you’ll need a good out-of-office message in English (un message d’absence en anglais). 

I hope you have a real break planned to unwind (se détendre) and recharge your batteries. Despite what a lot of Americans think, you work better and you’re more productive when you have quality down time (des moments pour se détendre et déstresser). But you already know this!

If you’re curious to know what it’s like for a French person living and working in the US when summer vacation rolls around (arrive), read this article by Mathilde, an French expatriate in Boston, called “No Vacation Nation / L’été aux USA”. Her entire blog is excellent too!

If you have a morbid curiosity to know more about why it’s like this (pourquoi c’est comme ça) in the US, read this article from the BBC called “Life in a no-vacation nation”, (which, in my opinion, sounds like (resemble à) a title of an article about North Korea or Iran)

This American (me), however, has adapted the French (the correct) attitude to vacation! For 3 weeks in July, we’re going to travel around Belgium, take some day trips, and go hiking around Grenoble. Fun, right? (See how useful the video on Talking About Your Vacation Plans was? 😉

Mail en anglais : Un modèle de message d’absence en anglais

This week’s Speak Better, Feel Great Video is another extremely practical one. You’ll get a perfect out-of-office message (message d’absence) that you can just copy and adapt, whether you use Outlook, Gmail, or some other email client. Easy!

Sure, you could just write “I’m absent from July 11-31”, but it’s not very polite nor very helpful (ce n’est ni poli ni très utile) I understand you don’t want to spend much energy trying to write a basic email absence message though. It’s just an out-of-office message, after all.

However, if you don’t have the right message, it may come across (être perçu) as curt and rude (brusque et malpoli). Sad, but true. I know you don’t mean (ne pas faire exprès) to be rude!

That’s why this week’s video has everything you need to crete the polite and useful absence message that your American colleagues expect to receive. Click here to watch the video.

I’m sure you’re vacation will be more relaxing now. You can send a postcard to thank me 🙂

CLICK HERE to watch “Your Vacation Absence Email Message”

Before you go, in the comments below, tell me what you’re planning to do for your vacation! I’d love to hear about all of the places members of the SBFG community are going this year!

P.S. If you’re not going on vacation, but need to save time writing email requests to colleagues, suppliers, and clients, GO TO “SAVE TIME AND WRITE BETTER EMAIL REQUESTS”