greeting

[Hanka]

Hi,

could you please help me again?
If I want to start a letter with greetings, what is the correct way?

Is it possible to say:
Dear Mr. XY, please accept my kind regards. I am very pleased .......

Thank you very much.

Hanka

[Tdol]

I'd leave out 'please accept my kind regards'.

[Hanka]

But I can´t leave that out, because it is a translation. Is it not possible to use a greeting at the beginning of a letter?

Hanka

[MrPedantic]

Hello Hanka

The letter will sound very odd, in English, if you include "please accept my kind regards" at the beginning.

As Tdol says, it's much better to leave it out.

MrP

[Hanka]

OK, thank you. So you never use greetings at the beginning of letters?

Hanka

[MrPedantic]

Hello Hanka

No, "Dear X" is enough, for the beginning of a letter. You can include some "best wishes" at the end, if you want, e.g.

Dear Gordon

Thank you very much for your letter, and the accompanying two copies of the revised one-year contract. I have signed both copies in the presence of two witnesses, as requested, and return one herewith.

Please give my very best wishes to Sarah and James.

Yours sincerely

Tony

MrP

[Ouisch]

Actually, there are exceptions to every rule. If this is a business letter, and the person sending the letter has a close relationship with the person to whom he is sending the letter, sometimes sending personal regards is acceptable.

For example, Mr. Jones is a sales representative for ABC Steel Company. He regularly does business with a purchasing agent named Mr. Smith at Ford Motor Company. The two are strictly friends on a business level. They've played golf together, they've had many lunches and dinners together, they've even met each other's wives (Mr. Jones has taken Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the opera a few times on his company's expense account.) In a case like this, some sort of personal greeting in a business letter would be acceptable and welcomed.

[Hanka]

Thank you Ousich. And could you give some examples of this sort of greetings that can be used at the beginning of a letter?

Thank you very much.

Hanka

[Ouisch]

I would probably open with something simple and generic, such as "I hope this letter finds you well." Then the next sentence would go into the actual business purpose of the letter. At the end of the letter, if you're familiar with the person's family, I would add a separate, short sentence such as "Please extend my best wishes to Mary and your children. I look forward to seeing all of you soon."

[Hanka]

And what about greetings like:

Dear Sir,

I would like to greet you OR Greetings to you...

Hanka