3. Find in the text English equivalents to the following Russian words and word combina-tions.

Конверт; поля; приложение к письму; отправитель; получатель; “улиточная почта”; выражать благодарность; извиняться; подпись; двойной пробел; шрифт; лексика не вызывающая затруднений; поздравлять; дюйм; запятая; двоеточие; лишенный цельности/фрагментарный; плавный переход; подпись; невыравненный справа (текст); концовка; основная тема (письма); инструкции; сгибать/складывать (письмо); приемлемый, адрес получателя.

4. Insert the right preposition where necessary. Consult the text. Translate the expressions.

1. to send _____ the post office

2. to fold a letter _____ three

3. a letter written _____ a person _____ a person

4. to put a comma _____ the salutation

5. to leave three _____ five spaces

6. a letter should fit _____ the paper

7. to place _____ the envelope

8. to justify _____ right side

5. Match the antonyms.

1. choppy a) ragged

2. salutation b) reject

3. offer c) recipient

4. justified d) closing

5. sender e) smooth

6. Read the text again and answer the following questions.

1. Why do people write business letters?

2. What vocabulary makes a letter more effective?

3. What do you call the person who receives a letter?

4. What is the font size for a business letter?

5. What punctuation marks are necessary after the salutation?

6. What does enc. stand for? Where does enc. go in a letter?

7. What is the Subject line for? Where does it go?

VOCABULARY EXERCISES

7. Put these seven names of the letter parts into the gaps: Date line, Letter Head, Salutation, Inside Address, Complimentary close, Letter body, Signature line.

Southtown Dental Center

3221 Ryan Road san Diego CA 92217

……………………….

September 26, 2010

Mrs. Barbara White

157 Beach Drive

San Diego, CA 92113

Dear Mrs White:

Please accept our offer for the position of dental receptionist at Southtown dental center.

If the terms we discussed in the interview are acceptable to you, please come in at 9.30 a.m. on October 3. At the time we will ask you to complete our personnel form.

Everyone here at Southtown is looking forward to working with you. We all were very favorably impressed with you during your interview.

Sincerely,

Rachel Johannes

Office Manager

8. Match these parts of the letter (1- 9) with their names (a-I).

1) 5th December, 2012 a) Salutation

2) Ms. Maggie Jones b) Name and Title (typed)

Angel Cosmetics Inc.

110 East 25th Street

New York, NY, 10021

USA

3) Dear Ms. Jones, c) Signature (handwritten)

4) Sincerely d) Inside address

5) enc: catalogue e) Date

6) Forthcoming Exhibition f) Closing

7) First paragraph...

Second paragraph... g) Subject

Third paragraph...

8) Morris Howard h) Enclosure

President

9) Morris Howard i) Body of a letter

9. Read the information about business letter layouts and identify the layout of the business letters a, b, c given below.

There are three basic letter formats used:

(1) block style (структура письма с использованием целых блоков текста), in which all the lines begin at the left-hand margin; (2) modified block style (модифицированный формат), in which the dateline, the return-address heading, the complimentary close, and the sender's name and title at the end begin in the center of the page; and (3) indented (also called modified block with paragraph indentations) (модифицированный формат с отступами для каждого параграфа), in which each first line of a new paragraph is indented five spaces and the sender's address and date are placed on the upper right-hand side of the page.

Closed punctuation is typical for American correspondence. It means that commas are used after the greeting and closing and there is a comma between the date and the year.

No punctuation after the greeting and closing and no comma in the dateline is typical for the British correspondence style. There is a different order of the dates in American versus British writing.

(по материалам сайта: http://mipt.ru)

Letter A

Abenteuer Urlaub, GmbH

Kaiser Str. 190

D-60437 Frankfurt

Germany

24 October 20__

The Honorable Dr. Emarmel N'Komo

Minister of Commerce Ministry Building Zanira Zanir

Dear Sir,

I am writing this inquiry in hopes that we can establish a relationship that will be of benefit to your beautiful country and to our guests, who would enjoy staying in such beautiful surroundings. While on a visit to your neighboring country, Mandika, I had the opportunity to spend several days in your country. I inquired about tourist facilities and discovered that they were yet undeveloped. Naturally, I thought that your country could certainly benefit from the popularity that its beauty would create among potential tourists and the income that they would bring.

Abenteuer Urlaub has established several holiday resorts in Africa with great benefit to the host countries in terms of job creation and revenue generation. There is great potential in both of these areas for a country with such natural beauty as yours. I would thus appreciate the opportunity to present our concept to your ministry in hopes that we can establish a mutually beneficial business relationship.

I look forward to hearing from you and having the possibility of presenting our ideas.

Yours faithfully

Uwe Stein

Uwe Stein,

Manager, Tourist Product Development

Letter B

Ministry of Commerce The State of India Udyod Bhawan New Dehli 110011 India

February 13, 20_

Mr. Hans Brand Chemi Suisse Hauptbahnstr. 23 Ch-4000 Basel Switzerland

Dear Sir:

The recent tragedy has raised the question of your company's concern for the life and health of our people. There can be no other explanation than gross negligence and total unconcern. When we originally established our business relationship, you assured me that everything would be done to ensure that such a tragedy, which has now occurred, would not occur. It appears that you did not even install an early warning system in our plant, as you have done in your Swiss plant. I can only interpret this as a total disregard for our people and a denial of everything we were promised during our original negotiations.

I cannot describe the suffering that your company's negligence has caused the local population and the effects this negligence will have for generations. We expect that the people involved be compensated for their suffering. The Indian government will hold you totally responsible for the suffering and damage, which is a result of your negligence. Furthermore, our lawyers will contact you in the course of next month.

Yours faithfully,

S. M. Singh

S. M. Singh,

Minister of Commerce

This is the standard form used in India, Canada, the United States, and Africa.

Letter C

Hotel de la Playa Avenida de la Playa 108 SP-03080 Alicante Spain

October 23, 20_

Ms. Margaret Smith, Director of Tour Operations Sun and Fun Tours 25 Hammersmith Road Harlow, Essex CM19 5AA England

Dear Ms. Smith,

RE: Delays in Completion of Construction at Hotel de la Playa

We have recently been informed by our contractor that he will not be able to meet his promised schedule for completion of the modernization of our hotel. We deeply regret this occurrence for both our guests' and your sake. We wish that there was something that could be done, but the causes of this unfortunate event are outside of our control. A combination of inclement weather and a strike have delayed completion of the repairs. Naturally, we will do our utmost to limit the impact of this work on our guests, and I can assure you that we will pressure the contractors to complete the work as soon as possible. Realistically, however, we cannot expect the work to be completed until the end of January.

As both our interests are to ensure that our guests enjoy their vacation, I would appreciate it if you could contact me so that we can coordinate our efforts to achieve this goal.

Sincerely,

Miguel Fuentes

Miguel Fuentes, Manager

This is the standard form in Britain, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand.

READING

TEXT 2

10. Read the text and match the headings (a-i) with the gaps at the start of each paragraph.

a) Salutation

b) Inside Address

c) Closing

d) Subject

e) Second and third paragraphs

f) Date

g) First paragraph

h) Signature

i) Final paragraph

__________

The return address (or the letterhead) is followed by the date. If you are using a letterhead, type the date of your letter two to six lines below it depending on the length of the letter. If you are an individual using your return address in the business letter, leave just one line between the return address and the date. All number dates are written differently in BrE (day/month/year – 31/12/13) and AmE (month/day/year – 12/31/13). This can lead to confusion. It may be better to write the date in full (31 December 2013; December 31st, 2013; December 31, 2013).

__________

If you know the person’s name, write it on the first line of the inside (or receiver’s) address. It can be preceded by the courtesy title (Mr., Ms., etc.). Try to put the full name: Margaret Edwards or M. Edwards. The receiver’s name can be followed by his/her position in the company or the name of the department.

When sending mail to UK addresses you need to use a full and accurate address complete with the postcode. You do not need to include a county name, as long as the post town and postcode are used. Avoid using commas or full stops and do not center or stagger your lines. Look at the example of UK address (Fig.1).

There should be a generous margin around the address.

Figure 1

If you are sending an item to an address outside the UK, the country name must come last and in CAPITAL letters. We would recommend you write your address on the back of all mail that you send so it can be returned to you if there’s a problem delivering it. Do not centre or stagger your lines. If you are sending by Airmail please use an Airmail sticker. Look at the example of an address outside the UK (Fig.2)

There should be a generous margin around the address.

Figure 2

UK address American address

Ms. J. Simpson JEREMY MARTINSON

Chapman&Hall Ltd. 455 LARK SPUR

12 Chapel Hill CALIFORNIA SPRINGS

Heswall CA 92926

PORTSMOUTH USA

EC4P 4EE

__________

First, make sure that you spell the recipient's name correctly. You should also confirm the gender and proper title. Use Ms. for women and Mr. for men. Use Mrs. if you are 100% sure that a woman is married. Under less formal circumstances, or after a long period of correspondence it may be acceptable to address a person by his or her first name. You could write “Dear Margaret Edwards” and skip the courtesy title. When you don't know the name of a person and cannot find this information out you may write “To Whom It May Concern”. It is standard to use a comma (colon in North America) after the salutation. Here are some common ways to address the recipient:

Dear Mr. Powell, Dear Ms. Mackenzie, Dear Frederick Hanson: Dear Sir, Dear Sirs, Dear Valued Customer, Dear Sir or Madam:

__________

In most types of business letter it is common to use a friendly greeting in the first sentence of the letter. Here are some examples:

Thank you for your kind letter of January 5th.

I came across an ad for your company in The Star today.

It was a pleasure meeting you at the conference this month.

We are pleased to tell you….

I appreciate your patience in waiting for a response.

__________

After your short opening, state the main point (subject) of your letter in one or two sentences:

I'm writing to enquire about...

I'm interested in the job opening posted on your company website.

We'd like to invite you to a member’s only luncheon on April 5th.

__________

Use a few short paragraphs to go into greater detail about your main point. If one paragraph is all you need, don't write an extra paragraph just to make your letter look longer. If you are including sensitive material, such as rejecting an offer or informing an employee of a layoff period, embed this sentence in the second paragraph rather than opening with it. Here are some common ways to express unpleasant facts:

We regret to inform you...

It is with great sadness that we...

After careful consideration we have decided...

We have always been happy with the quality of your products….

__________

Your last paragraph should include requests, reminders, and notes on enclosures. If necessary, your contact information should also be in this paragraph. Here are some common phrases used when closing a business letter:

I look forward to...

Do not hesitate to contact us……

Please respond at your earliest convenience.

I should also remind you that the next board meeting is on February 5th.

For further details...

If you require more information...

Thank you for taking this into consideration.

I appreciate any feedback you may have.

Enclosed you will find...

Feel free to contact me by phone or email.

__________

The most common complimentary close accepted in the US and UK is “Sincerely”. Use a comma between the closing and your handwritten name (or typed in an email):

Yours sincerely,

Respectfully yours, (very formal)

Yours faithfully, (UK for business letters that begin with Dear Sir, Dear Sirs, Dear Madam, Dear Sir or Madam)

Very truly yours, (polite and neutral for the US)

Best wishes,

All the best,

Warm regards,

__________

Leave four blank lines after the complimentary close to sign your name. Sign your name between the complimentary close and your printed name.

11. Match the English phrases from text 3 with their Russian equivalents.

1. to stagger the lines a) сообщать о неприятных фактах

2. capital letter b) пустая строка

3. under less formal circumstances c) поставить подпись

4. colon d) полный и точный адрес

5. to skip the courtesy title e) выражать суть дела

6. to state the main point f) пропустить титул по обычаю

7. full and accurate address g) напоминание

8. to inform of a layoff period h) при менее формальных обстоятельствах

9. to express unpleasant facts i) сообщать о периоде временного увольнения

10. request j) прописная буква, заглавная буква

11. reminder k) просьба, запрос

12. blank line l) двоеточие

13. to sign your name m) располагать строки зигзагообразно