ESL HELP! Desk: Help for Learners of English » Uncategorized

How to Begin a Letter

ESL Help! Desk — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:06:18 +0000

It’s really nice to know that people want to know how to begin a letter. First, it’s nice to know that in this world of telephones, there is a real interest in writing! It’s also great to know that our readers want to be polite, socially acceptable, and grammatically correct!

Here’s a request I received from a reader recently:

Please tell me about some phrase begging of the letter Like ( I hope find you in the best of health or I hope find well ect…

My question back is – to whom would you be writing? To a friend? To a business associate? To a relative or parent? This will help me come up with some beginnings based on the social relationship. There are more formal and less formal ways to ask this question.

Let’s look at the two openings you suggested:

“I hope this letter finds you well” is a very polite opening, and one that indicates good manners. It also would be sent to somebody whom you already know. Your variant would be “I hope this letter finds you in the best of health.“ Of course, as I indicated, this is a polite opening, and written to somebody whom you already know, so you want to use it appropriately. You also want to use this with someone who will appreciate the fine language.

If you want to write a letter to somebody you do not know, let me know and we can broaden the conversation and come up with some other appropriate openings.

Thank you for your question; it is a very good one!

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Is English Knowledge or Is It a Tool?

ESL Help! Desk — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 01:37:35 +0000

Here’s an interesting question that one of our readers posed. The question elicits thought. We’d be interested in your comments and thoughts.

in china the english teacher always teach englisn grammar , instead of english story.so students all bore of english lesson. but i think englisn is not a knowledge , it is a tool ,we can ues it to make our life, to do our business,to trip globe. is this right? please send your opinion to me by email. my email adress is XXX@XXX.com thank you.

We responded this way:

Hello!

Thanks for writing to us!

I have enjoyed reading your comment. Is English “knowledge”? Knowing a language or acquiring the ability to communicate in a given language is definitely a valuable skill and asset. It’s an intangible asset, something that others cannot take away from you. Sure, people who are away from their native countries for a long time lose the ability to speak and think quickly in their first language, and they aren’t able to keep up with the growing body of vocabulary. But once you have a language, it’s yours to keep. At the same time, what is the purpose of this knowledge? It’s purpose is to enable communication. To this extent, it is a tool, and an important one for human relationships.

Many “language” teachers take language apart and just focus on the rules or on the structure of language, i.e. on grammar. They never put the pieces back together again and create a language. You want your teacher to focus on language as a means of communication. You want to be able to read and understand books and stories, to listen and talk and more. Knowing the rules of grammar and don’t know how to communicate, it is not of any practical use. You’re right; if you are not reading stories and communicating with others, it’s boring. It’s like having the pieces of a car in your garage all taken apart. The car won’t get you anywhere.

And as a means of communication, it is valid in so many situations, as you indicated, for pleasure, for business, to be able to read great literature or the newspapers of other cultures. Sometimes a husband and a wife have a
different first language and so they need to be able to learn each other’s language, too.

I hope that you’ll find lots of ways to make English enjoyable, just as Chinese is a language that is both useful to you and allows for pleasure, entertainment, and the acquisition of knowledge.

Thanks for your interesting questions. We’re sorry you’re bored by your teacher’s style of teaching; hopefully you can enjoy all the benefits of knowing English - to enjoy reading interesting English books and articles, to understand the lyrics to music, to do business in English, and even enjoy the thrill of traveling around the globe and interacting with English speakers in English (just like you’re communicating with us through this website)!

All the best,

The ESL Help! Desk

How to Send Us a Message

ESL Help! Desk — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:20:16 +0000

Hello, Learners of English!

For a long time we had comment fields and our fans were typing their comments into that field and hopefully including their email addresses so that we could get back to them.

Many times we did not receive an email address to which to respond.

We have now changed that procedure. Asking you to submit your questions and comments via the blog serves two purposes: First, the amount of spam we receive is reduced (by WordPress’s wonderful plugins) and second, we receive your email address in all cases. In the past, we would receive up to 400 spam messages a week. WordPress will provide a firewall for us so that we will receive the comments we want – yours – and now those of unscrupulous spammers.

Asking you to submit your questions via the blog is a wonderful solution.

So thank you for taking the time to read our blog.