1. Write a letter in which you:

a) express appreciation for the inquiry;

b) give the reason why you are not able to be of any help;

c) suggest some alternative that may be of help.

2. Write a letter in which you:

a) acknowledge the receipt of the letter …;

b) express regret that you are not able to be of any help;

c) express willingness to offer assistance in the future.

V. Letters of Thanks

On receiving invitations, papers, reprints, books or valuable infor­mation you should send a letter of thanks, gratitude or appreciation to acknowledge their receipt.

TASKS

Read the samples and note the phrases and sentences used to express thanks, gratitude and appreciation:

Letter 1

Dear Prof …,

It was a pleasure to receive your letter of March 15. Thank you for sending me your book. It is of great help to me. Please give my best regards to your wife and son.

Hoping to see you at the Congress in London.

Yours sincerely,

Name

Letter 2

Dear Dr. . .,

I wish to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of April 6 and express my gratitude for sending the reprints.

Best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

Name

Letter 3

Dear Dr

We acknowledge the receipt of your letter of June 6, 2005 and thank you very much for the paper under the title … .

Yours sincerely,

Name

Letter 4

Dear Dr …,

I wish to thank you for your kind letter of April 23. I am happy to inform you that we have used your method of cultivating unicellular algae and the results are remarkable.

As soon as I complete the graphs and tables, I will send them to you for comparison.

You can hardly realize how much I appreciate the data you sent via Prof…. She has given me a short outline of the work you are carrying out in your laboratory. She is a very charming person and I enjoyed the talks and discussions that we had.

I look forward to seeing you at the Colloquium in August.

Yours sincerely,

Name

Here are some more phrases used to acknowledge the receipt of let­ters containing valuable information:

We are glad/pleased to receive your letter of... .

It was a great pleasure to receive your letter of... .

It is so kind of you to send me... .

I am delighted that you sent... .

I am much obliged to you for sending me … .

I wish to thank you very much for your kind letter of … .

We thank you very much for … .

Many thanks for your letter of June 7.

I am most grateful to you for sending me … .

Thank you so much for … .

TASKS

1. Write a letter in which you:

a) acknowledge the receipt of the letter of (date);

b) express your gratitude to Dr. … for an invitation to the conference to be held;

c) express hope to meet him at the conference.

2. Write a letter in which you:

a) acknowledge the receipt of the letter of (date);

b) express thanks for sending the reprint of the paper.

3. Write a letter in which you:

a) acknowledge with thanks the receipt of the journal …

b) write that on completing your experimental investigation you will contribute another paper for publication.