The Right and Wrong Ways to End a Professional Email in English

Hi I'm Anne Marie with Speak Confident English and welcome to your Confident

English Wednesday lesson. Now most weeks we do focus on skills that are essential

for speaking English with confidence and fluency but this week we're going to

shift our focus a little bit and work on writing, specifically writing emails and

how to close or finish an email. Now just a quick note: if emailing is something

very useful to you in your English skills - maybe you email often in English

at work. I do have several other lessons on the topic of emails such as Seven

Rules for Professional Emails and How to Avoid Other Common Mistakes and you can

find all of those lessons also include links to those other lessons below this

video. But let's focus today on the right and wrong way to close an email. This is

the final impression someone will have of you and there are definitely right

and wrong ways to do it. And we'll look at two situations: situations that are

more business professional or formal and some more casual, very friendly ways to

end an email. Now two quick rules about emails: 1. always use a closing. Always.

It is considered unprofessional, maybe even rude, if you don't include a closing.

If it's your mom, if it's your best friend who is an English speaker or

someone that you email multiple times a day, then maybe you could avoid using a

closing. But in every other email you want to look professional

you want to look friendly, so use a closing. And the second rule is your

closing should match the formality of the email. If you're writing a business

email to a new client you should use a closing that is appropriate for a

business email and if you're writing to your new English-speaking neighbor then

you can use a more casual closing. Let's imagine a

more formal situation first: perhaps you are sending an email to arrange a date

and a time for a job interview or you are going to meet a brand-new client. It

is a business professional email. Here are a few great ways to end that email:

kind regards. Always professional, very friendly. Regards. Short, direct, but still

appropriate. Warm regards. Again very friendly but honestly this one is maybe

best used when you already know the person. It's still a formal email, it's a

formal business contact but you've already met them before.

And finally sincerely. This one sometimes for people feels a little bit too formal

its more common in a business letter but if you're writing to a total stranger

for example, you're writing about a job interview, it's okay to be really formal

even in an email and sincerely could be appropriate. Now if you're sending an

email to someone for work who you know well, you've met them several times but

it's still a work email, we don't need to be so formal. We can be a little bit more

casual but we still want to be professional as well so here are a few

examples: best or best regards. Again we could use warm regards. This is for someone

you already know. Or even cheers. Now this one is interesting because it's more

common among British English speakers or Australian English speakers. To be honest

I never use this closing. It's not natural to me but it is to many English

speakers so if it feels natural to you then feel free to use it.

And finally, if it's Friday and you're writing to the people you know in your

office end your email with have a weekend. Everyone loves to be reminded

that the weekend is almost here so you could use that as well. Those are all

fantastic ways to end an email that sounds professional and friendly but now

let's look at some examples that are not correct. These are examples that you

should avoid using in your emails. To be really honest, they're just not

appropriate for professional situations. Yours truly or yours faithfully. This

just feels too personal or too intimate. Have a blessed day. With this word

'blessed' it has a little bit of a religious feeling to it and

religion is not appropriate for a business professional situation, so it is

best to avoid this closing. Thanks or regards when you spell it as an

abbreviation, as I have here, not appropriate. We don't abbreviate closings

in professional emails. So you might be wondering: do I really need to use a

closing every time I send an email? Most of the time, yes. But there's one

exception. Imagine that you're at work and you send an email to the same person

every day and maybe you've sent them an email and now it is a chain email. A

chain email is when there are many different responses on the same email.

Maybe you ask a question, someone responded, then you gave your response,

they asked another question and it just continued. And now there are 20 emails

inside this one email. That's a chain email. Okay, after the first few emails

you can start to stop using a closing. Honestly, that's okay. It gets a little

bit too much to be honest but that's really the only

exception. Again the goal is to look professional all the time and a closing

in your email will help you do that. And that is it! You now have all the examples

that you need for professional, friendly closings in an email and some examples

that you should avoid. So now I'd like to hear from you: if you email in English

regularly - either just for fun with your personal contacts or professionally - what

continues to be the most challenging for you? I know that it can be stressful,

frustrating, it takes time to think about the right things to say, so what is the

most challenging for you? I'd love to hear your thoughts and your comments. And,

as always, you can share with me in the comment section just below this video. I

do read and respond to every comment so feel free to let me know what is

challenging or frustrating for you when it comes to emails in English. And with

that, have a fantastic week. Enjoy your Wednesday and I will see you next week

for your Confident English lesson.