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I assigned a letter to my student that invites his friend to a dinner party at his home. He was expreceted to write the letter in informal style.
One of my students wrote, “Haven’t seen you for a long time, how are you?” Could I replace it with “Long time no see, how are you?” I think the sencond one is often used in spoken English, so maybe it is more informal than the first one. What is your opnion? Thank you.
"Long time no see" is very informal: certainly more so than "Haven't seen you for a long time". It's certainly used in spoken, colloquial English - but you may think that it is a bit too informal to use in a written invitation to dinner.
Also, there's nothing formal about what your student originally wrote.
The comma splice bothers me, though. . How are you?
A comma splice isn't informal. It's just wrong.
I love "long time no see".....it helps absolute beginneers get into the Anglo-Saxon way of informal expressions as well.:)