EnglishPod

The Office - Sending A Quote Via Email #D0315

Tracy: Melanie, can you help me with something? We need to finalize the account with the Mexican Embassy and, I need some advice on phrasing this letter correctly in English.

Melanie: Sure Tracy, let me just get my laptop. All set.

Tracy: Okay, so... to Whom It May Concern, I am writing.

Melanie: Um, Tracy? I think that’s a little too formal. I know you want to be polite but you’ve already made contact with them, so in English you can be more relaxed in the opening...

Tracy: Okay, more relaxed. Got it... Hey Sally, what’s up? It’s Tracy here, just.

Melanie: Okay Tracy, now it’s too relaxed! You’ve still got to show some respect. How about starting with “Dear Ms. Cooper, I’m writing to confirm..?

Tracy: Great, okay. “Dear Miss Cooper, I’m writing to confirm the final quotation for the full page back cover color advertisement you requested for the spring issue of Voila magazine.

Melanie: That’s great...

Tracy: “The final costing, including advert design and production, comes to forty-five thousand six hundred RMB. We want payment ten working days before publication or we will cancel the ad. Thanks for...”

Melanie: Woo, okay back up a second Tracy. That’s too direct. Can I suggest you say, please note that final payment is due two working weeks before publication? You don’t want to offend her.

Tracy: Oops okay. You are right. Then I can just end with “All the best, Tracy”

Melanie: Hmmmm, maybe, but I’d play it safe and just finish with “Yours Sincerely”. That’s more professional.

Tracy: Oh, Melanie you are a life saver, thank you!

Key Vocabulary

costing - charge, make someone pay

please note that - being informed of something

quotation - a statement of the price of an item or service

play it safe - go with the safest option

I am writing to - introduction

Supplementary Vocabulary

cargo - freight of a ship, airplane

link - a word icon, etc., on which a user may click to move to another part of or different website, document

attachment - something attached, as a document added to a letter, or an picture in a email etc.

etiquette - conventional requirements as to social behavior; proprieties of conduct as established in any class or community or for any occasion