MINI STUDY GUIDE

ADVANCED ENGLISH 2 – Giving advice, offering, suggesting and writing letters (Dexway Unit
3)

USE:

How to express...

Let’s have a look at some linguistic structures that permit us to express the following functions:

ADVICE

Imagine the following situation: You go to a friend’s house (American, of course) and he really doesn’t
look very well. He tells you that it’s been days since he started feeling bad. How can you advise him
to go to the doctor? Have a look at the following expressions:

If I were you, I would...

If I were you, I’d go to the doctor.

Why don’t you...?

Why don’t you go to the doctor?

You ought to
You ought to go to the doctor.

You should
You should go to the doctor.

You’d better
You’d better go to the doctor.

You would do better to (UK)

You would do better to go to the doctor.

The last four expressions usually are preceded by “I think”, “I don’t think” or “In my opinion”, that
softens the tone of the advice.

I think you’d better stay in bed.

I don’t think you should go to work.

In my opinion you ought to rest.

OFFER

Your friend doesn’t want to go to the doctor and prefers to stay home. You stay with him and you offer
to make different things for him to be more comfortable. Have a look at the structures you can use:

Should I...?
Should I bring you something to drink?

(If you like) I’ll...

I’ll prepare a nice cup of tea.

Do you want me to...?

/ Would you like me to...?
Do you want me to cook something for dinner?

Would you like...?

Would you like an omelet?

Can I get / offer / give you...?

Can I get you any medicine from the drugstore?

SUGGESTION

Your friend already feels better and you are making plans for the weekend. You would like to go on a
trip to the coast. How can you present your suggestion? See these expressions:

Let’s...!
Let’s drive to the coast!

Why don’t we...?

Why don’t we drive to the coast?

Should we...?
Should we drive to the coast?

How about + gerund...?

/ What about + gerund...?
What / How about driving to the coast?

Would you like to...? / Do you want to...?

Would you like / Do you want to drive to the coast?

The last two expressions, “Would you like to...?” and “Do you want to...?”, are also used to make an
invitation:

Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?

Do you want to come to my birthday party?

Both expressions have the same meaning, but the second one (with “want”) is only used in an
informal situation.
REQUEST

Finally, we are going to see forms of asking for something. There can be two situations:

1. We ask for permission to do something.

For example, to go out today.

I wonder if I could...
I wonder if I could leave early today.

Do you mind if I...?

Do you mind if I leave early today?

May I...?
May I leave early today?

Could I...?
Could I leave early today?

Can I...?
Can I leave early today?

2. We ask somebody to do something for us.

For example, to water the plants while we are on vacation.

Do you think you could...?

Do you think you could water my plants?

Would you mind + gerund...?

Would you mind watering my plants?

Could you...?
Could you water my plants?

Can you...?
Can you water my plants?

Both schemas show the expressions ranked from the most formal to the most informal style (at the
bottom, higher degree of familiarity with the partner of speech).

Letter writing

In this unit, we are going to learn how to write formal and informal letters in English.

1. Parts of a letter:
Address of sender: Appears in all kinds of letters, on the top right.

Address of recipient: Only in formal letters. Its position is on the top left, but lower than the address
of the sender.

Date: Below the address of the recipient, on the left or the right, both are possible.

Salutation: The salutation is the head of the letter. It always begins with “Dear ...” followed by the
recipient’s name (Dear Sarah) if it’s an informal letter, or a title of courtesy and the recipient’s surname
(Dear Ms. Randall) if it’s a formal letter. If we don’t know the recipient’s name we can use a general title
of courtesy (Dear Sir or Madam).

Body of the letter: The body is a paragraph or paragraphs, in which we present the content of our
letter. It usually finishes with the set phrase “I look forward to ...”, always followed by a verb in gerund
form, like for example “I look forward to hearing from you soon” or “We look forward to doing business
with you”.

Closing: There are many set phrases of closing for informal letters. Some of them are: Love / take
care / write soon / all the best, etc.

Nevertheless, the rules for the set phrases in formal letters are more strict. Basically, we use two forms:
”Yours faithfully” and “Yours sincerely”. When the salutation was “Dear Sir or Madam”, that is, when we do
not know the recipient’s name, we should use “Yours faithfully”; when the salutation contained the
recipient’s surname, we should use the form “Yours sincerely”.

Signature: In formal letters, above the signature, we add name and the last name of the sender and
his/her position in the company in typewritten form, so that it can be read perfectly.

Postscript: In case we forgot to put some information in the body, we can add it at the end of the letter,
introducing it with the characters P.S. (Post script, in Latin). This form is used in informal letters; formal
letters have to be written again or modified if we forgot to mention something important.

Attachment: Especially in commercial letters are add a lot of additional documents are added. These
are usually indicated by the abbreviation “encl.”(from the word “enclosure”) written at the end of the
letter on the left side, so that the recipient of the letter knows that the envelope contains something
more, apart from the letter.

2. Main differences between formal and informal letters:

Formal letters have to be typewritten.

In informal letters, we don’t have to include the recipient’s address. We do that only in formal letters,
because the sender usually keeps a copy for his records, and that way he can always know who sent
which letter and when, and also always has the address at hand.

In formal letters, we do not mention the person’s first name, only a title of courtesy and the surname.

In formal letters, no contracted forms are used.

In formal letters, the closings are restricted and more controlled.

In formal letters, no postscript is used.

In comercial letters, we usually include references. These references are the initial letters of the name of
the sender and the initials of the person that was in charge of writing and printing out the letter (usually,
chief executive and secretary or assistant). They go below the date and before the salutation.

The first two initials correspond to Mark Oldman, the same person that signed the letter. The second
initials correspond to his/her assistant, who could be Richard Sarandon or Rebecca Smith, etc.