Common errors made in Business Writing ( Business Emails & Letters) – Business English Lesson

Hi this is Ceema and thanks for clicking in.
Today, I’m going to bring you a new lesson on common errors while writing business English.
Now, when you write a business email or a business letter and if you make mistakes when
you are writing it, guess what your letter or your email does not look very professional
and that’s not a good thing, is it? Well, don’t worry I’m going to take care of that
for you today. Okay, because today I’m going to point out certain very common errors when
you are writing a business email or a business letter, okay. So, when you know what those
errors are I promise you, you are not going to repeat them again and you keep practising
these simple rules that I’m going to teach you. Let’s have a look at the common errors we
all make. Alright, the first error is when you start a
letter, okay. So when people start a letter, they start the letter telling the other party
about what they are writing, right? They want to convey the purpose of their letter or the
purpose of their email, right? So they begin writing or saying something like,” I am writing
in respect of.” Now what is the error in the way this is you know written, okay. So when
you say I am writing in respect of… the sentence in respect of is not required. In
fact this sentence is completely wrong, it doesn’t sound right, okay. So what can you
replace I am writing in respect of with? You could say.. I am writing in reference to or
you could simply say.. I am writing with regard to or make it even more simple. You could
just say I am writing regarding or I am writing concerning. So you do not want the start of
your business letter or your business email to be wrong. Okay, so when you start the letter,
you are not going to use a sentence like this, when you are going to use I am writing and
start your letter, okay. Alright, the second common error we make is
a statement which goes like this, “We would like to regret the inconvenience.” Well, again
this is a very common error and why do you think that is an error? Okay, now look carefully,
this sentence is trying to say that you are sorry, you are apologizing, is that right?
Well, you are apologizing but when you apologize you don’t use the sentence we would like to
regret. When there is a regret, you will not use this sentence. You simply say, we regret
the inconvenience or we regret the delay that this has caused, okay. However, if you must
use this sentence, okay because you love this sentence probably, you can say, “We would
like to apologize for the inconvenience.” So if you use regret, you don’t use this sentence,
we regret the inconvenience. It’s another way of saying sorry but if you want to use
we would like to, you can just say, “we would like to apologize for the inconvenience.”
Does that sound better? Well that sounds like simple and better English, right? So we will
do away with this second error as well, okay. The third common error is people who say,
“I ensure you that we will have the goods delivered on time.” A lot of people think
that this is actually correct. But I’ll tell you why this is wrong. Because when you use
the word ensure, you can never use that with a you after it. Basically, when you are using
the word ensure, it always has to be followed by a fact. You could say, “I ensure that out
logistics team is very punctual.” or I ensure that we give the best services. You cannot
use a person, a second person or a third person followed by the word ensure. However, if you
are using the word assure that is when you can follow it with the you to make sure that
you remove a person’s doubts. So you could say, ” I assure you that you will have the
best of our services.” But when you are using the word ensure, you’ve got to follow the
word ensure by a fact. So I ensure you is a wrong sentence altogether. You assure somebody
but you ensure a thing or a fact, alright. I hope that’s very clear. Okay, the third common error is a sentence
which goes like this, “You will receive feedback until next Wednesday.” Okay, the
common error over here is, the word until. Why do you think this is an error? Okay, I’ll
tell you why. Because when you use the word, until, you are only going to sue for a time
period, when there is a continuous series of events that happens. But when you have
a single event, now over here we are talking about receiving feedback that is only one
event, right? So you will just say, you will receive feedback by next Wednesday because
there is only one event happening within a certain time period which is Wednesday. I
repeat when you are using the word until, you are using the word until because, you
were talking about a continuous event which happens within a certain time period. But
here we are talking about one single event which is feedback, right? So therefore we
will just say, you will receive feedback by Wednesday. But if we are talking about a continuous
event, you could say,” We are going to conduct surveys until the third of November.” because
that is a series of continuous events, right? So you will use by an until depending on whether
you are talking about a single event or a continuous event that happens within a particular
time period, okay. Now the next very common error is a sentence
which goes like this, okay. I would like to request some informations. A lot of people
think that because you are giving them a lot of information, you have s at the end of it.
Well that’s completely wrong because information is an uncountable noun. Even nouns like advice
or news. You can give people some news, you can give people advice. You can give people
some information. But you will never have an s at the end of an uncountable noun because
it is uncountable. You can’t quantify that into individual units, okay. So that’s another
mistake you are not going to make when you write that next business email or letter,
okay. Alright, the next one is again a very common
error. People always confuse the except with the accept, okay. Note very clearly there
is a very different pronunciation between the two words. But people you know try to
confuse them. So you don’t say we except all major credit and debit cards. You will say
we accept not except but accept all major credit and debit cards. What’s the difference
between these two words. Accept is when you take something willingly or so you are taking
something, okay. Except is when you are excluding or when you do not include something. So you
could say something like, “We accept, which means we willingly take all major credit and
debit cards except credit cards from Citibank.” Which means we are excluding one of the major
banks. But apart from one of the major banks that we are excluding, we accept all other
credit or debit cards, okay. Does that make it simple for you? Alright, the next common error we make is
when we write something like,” I want you to email me the reports right now.” Okay,
I’ll be honest with you, this is not an error. Okay, this is perfect English. But why is
it an error in i would say the style of English writing? Because I believe that when you are
writing a business email, you have got to be very polite. You have got to be very courteous,
right? So this sentence kind of sounds like a demand, doesn’t sound very nice and polite,
right? So you could replace this with a more courteous tone by saying,” could you please
email me the reports until next Friday?” Or please have the reports at my desk by the
end of the day. Okay so that’s a better way of writing an email because when you write
a business email or a letter, you want to get your work done, right? So if you want
to get your work done, you’ve got to be polite, okay because that also sound more professional,
alright. The next very common error is the sentence
which goes like,” I look forward to receive your reply.” A lot of people , a lot of people
make this mistake but what is the error? When you write a to, you never use a verb following
to. In fact you will say to, you will follow that with a verb, which has an ING at the
end of it. So you could say something like, “I look forward to receiving your reply.”
Okay you do not say I look forward to receive your reply which again is incorrect English.
Because when you use the to and a verb which follows the to, always there has to be an
ING at the end of that verb which makes it sound like correct English.
Okay, well these are the very common English errors I have seen looking at business emails
and letters. So I hope that you don’t make these mistakes again because when you kind
of do away with these mistakes, you will see that you can write English correctly and in
a very professional manner. Well, I’ll be back with some more lessons, until then, this
is me saying take care.

Written by Raul Dinwiddie

60 comments