Business emails

[johnmck]

I am starting to write emails in Chinese to one of my customers in China. I know my customer very well and he knows I have been trying to learn Chinese for some years so writing emails to him with my poor level of Chinese is not an issue.

I would like to know how one adds politeness to an email. For example, can I add 请问 before a question, or is this only used in spoken Chinese? Simply asking a question without adding the Chinese equivalent of "please" seems a bit abrupt.

Does anyone have any links to websites either discussing how to write business letters/emails or websites that have examples of them?

John.

[HashiriKata]

Simply asking a question without adding the Chinese equivalent of "please" seems a bit abrupt.

You're right, but 请问 does not mean "please" here. It's difficult to advise what to say before a question without knowing what the specific question is, but "对了" may be a handy opening.

If you're very interested, "Developing Writing Skills in Chinese" by Boping Yuan and Kan Qian may be worth having a look. It has many units on writing letters and emails in it.

[Koneko]

I know my customer very well and he knows I have been trying to learn Chinese for some years so writing emails to him with my poor level of Chinese is not an issue.

If that's the case, I'd recommend you to write in plain Modern Chinese because business letters in Chinese normally require knowledge of Classic Chinese.

"It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

DJ. K. strikes back

[rose~]

There's a great site all about writing letters here:

http://www.cbs.polyu.edu.hk/ctlydial/homepage/front.html

[volga_volga]

a related question: how do you sign email in Chinese; what is equivalent of "regards, [name]"? my Chinese teacher told me that this is "[name] 上". is that right? at the time I suspected she didn't understand the question

[johnmck]

Rose,

That is a very good link, thanks.

[johnmck]

Volga,

My Chinese customer just puts his name at the end of the email without a 上.

John

[elina]

a related question: how do you sign email in Chinese; what is equivalent of "regards, [name]"? my Chinese teacher told me that this is "[name] 上". is that right?

I think it’s “[name] 敬上”, which can be shorten as “[name] 上”, but I seldom use it. When I write to our customers, I usually end my letter with:

顺颂商祺！

My name

Or

祝

工作顺利！

My name

[roddy]

Never really done any business writing, but what about using 贵公司 to refer to your correspondent's firm? I've seen that quite a bit, although now I think about it might have been in lawsuits . . .

[studentyoung]

a related question: how do you sign email in Chinese; what is equivalent of "regards, [name]"? my Chinese teacher told me that this is "[name] 上". is that right? at the time I suspected she didn't understand the question

I don’t think the equivalent of “regards, [name]” is "[name] 上". In fact, "[name] 上" means "[name] wrote the letter and sent it to you politely ".

As for “regards, [name]”, it depends on the conditions. In a business letter, we usually write as below:

祝：

商祈 （I wish your business could run smoothly, or words like that.）

[名]

In a more traditional and polite way, we usually write as below:

祝：

商祈

[名]敬上 / 上

In those private letters, we usually write as below:

祝：

身体健康 / 万事如意 / 工作顺利 / 合府安康 / ……

[名]

Thanks!

[gougou]

What about this one:

　　此致

敬礼

　　　　　　　　　　Name

Have seen this one a couple of times, and it also is used in my 写作大全book. Is it more formal than the above?

[elina]

I think it’s ok to say:

　　此致

敬礼

　　　　　　　　　　Name

But in my opinion, it sounds like 革命的（I don’t know how to say it in English）, and not modern. I could be wrong, though.