Write it Right-part one. Common Mistakes in English

Kimi

Where Problems Arise:
Complications in the Simple act of Writing a Business Letter in English

By Kim Palchikoff, MA
http://www.russia-editor.com

I have read hundreds of business letters written by Russians, in English. Inevitably the mistakes made are usually the same ones, over and over. Here are some of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen (and how to correct them).

The standard way to open a standard business letter is with the salutation “Mr.” or “Ms.,” the person's last name and a colon (not a comma!), like this:  (Dear Ms. Chu: Dear Mr. Paige: Dear Ms. Conly: ) Forget about using Miss or Mrs. They were left back in the 20th century. We do not use them anymore.

NOTE: In today’s global and multilingual world, you never know sometimes if someone is a man or a woman when you see their name in print form. I recently met a man named Kelly, which is usually thought of as a woman’s name. In some countries, Jan is a man’s name. In others, it’s a woman’s. If you do NOT know for 100% sure whether the recipient of the letter is a man or woman, then simply use their first and last name in the greeting, such as: (Dear Kim Palchikoff: or Dear Jan Jones:).

You can use the first name only if you are on a first-name basis with the recipient depending on the nature of the letter. (Dear Steve, Dear Jessica:) Usually we do not address someone by their first name until we have met them and established an informal relationship. In Russian it’s the difference between Vui and Ti. Don’t confuse them.

NEVER spell out the titles Mr., Ms., and Dr. DO spell out these other titles below and similar ones: Professor, Dean, Rabbi, Imam, Senator, Governor, Captain, Admiral, Judge, President, Comrade.

Make sure your sentences and paragraphs are not too long. Russian sentences and paragraphs are much, much longer than ones in English. Many foreigners joke that a Russian sentence can be as long as an American paragraph. As you know, even Russian words can be extremely long! Simply translating Russian materials into English is not enough for a good translation. You must make sure that the sentences are short enough so that they are clear and that they are not run-on, meaning they go on and on and are too long.

There are lots of rules for when to break a sentence into shorter ones, but the easiest thing to remember is that if you can break a sentence into two sentences, it is best to do so. If a sentence is complete, meaning it has a verb, noun and subject, that’s fine. There is no such thing as a sentence that is too short as long as it is grammatically correct and has all the components a sentence needs. (Example: “I await your response.”

SAMPLE RUN-ON SENTENCE

I use my judgment in resolving questions where the tax law is unclear or where conflicts may exist between the taxing authorities and unless you instruct me otherwise, I resolve such questions in your favor whenever possible. However, the opinion I express does not bind the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) thus, I cannot guarantee the outcome in the event the IRS challenges my opinion.

Again, you must look closely at any sentence in English that is three or more sentences long and make sure there isn’t a way to break it into pieces. The one above is two and a half lines long. I would automatically check that, too. Often in the legal world sentences are longer than usual, but it always is good to check them twice. Below you can see how the above sentence was broken up into four sentences.

I use my judgment in resolving questions where the tax law is unclear or where conflicts may exist between the taxing authorities. Unless you instruct me otherwise, I resolve such questions in your favor whenever possible. However, the opinion I express does not bind the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Thus, I cannot guarantee the outcome in the event the IRS challenges my opinion.

In English we sign our letters with our first name first, and last name after that. The last name is NOT in capital letters. I can’t tell you how many times I have seen Russians sign their letters PALCHIKOFF, Kim or Kim PALCHIKOFF. It’s something simple, but I’ve seen this mistake many, many times. We never use a last name first in any circumstance in English and we never, never put our last name in capitals.

Finally, have someone proofread it. It’s best to have a native English speaker, but if you can’t then have a Russian speaker with a solid knowledge of English take a look at it. As we say, “Two eyes are better than one.” Often there are grammar errors in translations, even those done by professional translators who are not editing for sentence and paragraph length but are simply translating word for word what is on the page in Russian. There are especially a lot of problems with articles (a, an, the, etc……) as these parts of speech do not exist in the Russian language. But that is the subject of another posting.

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT ENGLISH, PLEASE POST THEM!

common lawyer

Kimi писал(а):

The standard way to open a standard business letter is with the salutation “Mr.” or “Ms.,” the person's last name and a colon (not a comma!),
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In British English, we definately put commas after salutations, for both personal and business letters. In fact, I've never seen a colon used. Must be American English.

Miracle

И еще точки после Mr и Ms в британском варианте не ставятся.

Jack Tar

Kimi писал(а):

and a colon (not a comma!),

common lawyer писал(а):

we definately put commas after salutations. I've never seen a colon used

Thx!

now I'm comfused! :lol:

Mark Antony

Forrest Gump

common lawyer писал(а):

In British English, we definately put commas after salutations, for both personal and business letters. In fact, I've never seen a colon used. Must be American English.

Грамотей, блин. Видимо уже сказывается хроническая интоксикация русской водкой.

common lawyer

Блин. Интоксикация имела место быть, правда не водкой.

common lawyer

Apparently it's the most misspelled word in the English language.

[Показать] Спойлер:

Definately* the most misspelled word in the English language (*it should be definitely)
Jun 15 2009 By Paul Collins
SPELLING definitely is a problem for many people - who insist on writing it "definately".
A survey revealed yesterday that it is the most common spelling blunder in the English language.
Second place went to sacrilegious, often misspellt as sacreligious. Indict - often written wrongly as indite - was third.
And manoeuvre's tricky succession of vowels brought it fourth place.
Another vowel-heavy word, bureaucracy, came fifth.
A spokesman for researchers OnePoll.com said: "So many of us seem unable to spell. Considering people judge others, yet don't like their intelligence to be judged by how well they spell, they should up their game and pick up a dictionary."
The vegetable broccoli came sixth, followed by phlegm at seven and prejudice at eight. Consensus and unnecessary completed the top 10.
The research found 57 per cent judge other people on their spelling, with 42 per cent admitting they believe people who can't spell are "thick".
And half blame computer spell-checks for their inadequacies, with one in three pointing the finger at text messaging.
Top ten Misspelt Words 1. Definitely (Definately) 2. Sacrilegious (Sacreligious) 3. Indict (Indite) 4. Manoeuvre (Maneouvre) 5. Bureaucracy (Beaurocracy) 6. Broccoli (Brocolli) 7. Phlegm (Phleghm) 8. Prejudice (Predjudice) 9. Consensus (Conscensus) 10.Unnecessary (Unecessary)

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-wo ... -21441847/

Даже спеллчек на лоферме не выдает ошибку на definately

Forrest Gump

Любой русский знает проверочное слово - finita la comedia

А что было - неужели самогон?

common lawyer

Да здесь любое проверочное слово пойдет: finish, definition и т.д.

Нет, не самогон. Можно не буду говорить что?

Badbob

common lawyer писал(а):

Нет, не самогон. Можно не буду говорить что?

страхи и сомнения надо в трубку забивааать

Forrest Gump

common lawyer писал(а):

Да здесь любое проверочное слово пойдет: finish, definition и т.д.

Проверочное слово это то слово, в котором проблемная буква находится под ударением.

ollipop

Kimi писал(а):

... There are especially a lot of problems with articles (a, an, the, etc……) as these parts of speech do not exist in the Russian language. But that is the subject of another posting...

Is that posting up already? I'd really appreciate something like that. Many would certainly join me. Pretty murky subject indeed

P.S. Thanks for your pieces of advice.

LAWFIRM.ru

Write it Right-part one. Common Mistakes in English

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