FCE (First Certificate in English) - Phrases

Business writing in FCE brainstorming

Work together to brainstorm at least two suitable phrases for each of the categories below.

Emails and letters

Salutation/ Opening greeting

 

 

 

 

Opening line

 

 

 

 

Starting paragraphs

 

 

 

 

Indirect questions

 

 

 

 

Closing line

 

 

 

 

Closing salutation/ Closing greeting

 

 

 

Reports

Opening the introduction

 

 

 

 

Explaining what you did in order to write the report

 

 

 

 

Giving the most important information

 

 

 

Contrasting

 

 

 

 

Reporting what people said

 

 

 

 

Giving more information/ Adding details

 

 

 

 

Summarising

 

 

 

 

Concluding

 

 

 

 

Recommendations

 

 

 

 

 

Suggested answers

Emails and letters

Salutation

Dear Sir/ Madam/ Dear Sir or Madam

Dear Mr/ Ms + family name

Dear + given name

Hi + given name

 

Opening line

Thank you for…

It was so nice to hear from you.

I am writing to you to/ about/ because…

How are you?

 

Starting paragraphs

First of all, I have/ had some questions about/ In answer to your questions about…

There were also a few things I wondered about…/ Now I’d like to answer what you asked me about…/ You also asked me about...

 

Indirect questions

Could you (possibly) tell me…?

I also wanted some information about…

I (really) need to know…

 

Closing line

(I’m) looking forward to hearing from you (soon)/ seeing you soon.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks again.

If you need any further information/ If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me./ If there’s anything else you want to know, drop me a line anytime.

 

Closing salutation

Yours

Best regards

All the best

Love

See you

(textspeak abbreviations like CU are not acceptable in FCE, for some reason)

 

Reports

Opening the introduction

The purpose of this report is to…

I have written this report to…

This report has been written in order to…

 

Explaining what you did in order to write the report

In order to prepare this report…

To do so, I…

The data in this report was obtained by…

In order to help make this decision,…

… asked/ discussed/ gave out a questionnaire/ surveyed…

 

Giving the most important information

The main/ most important/ biggest/ most significant…

 

Contrasting

However,…

In contrast,…

Although…,…

 

Reporting what people said

A few/ Some/ Many/ Most/ The majority of/ Almost all the people said/ reported/ complained/ recommended/ believed/ thought…

… are concerned/ worried/ surprised…

 

Giving more information

In addition…/ …also…

The second most important/ biggest/ most significant…

Another/ An additional/ A further…

 

Summarizing

Although reactions were mixed, on the whole…

On balance,…

It can be seen from the data/ reactions/ information above that…

Looking at all the things people said, on the whole…

Taking everyone’s comments into consideration,…

Despite the… above, in general it is clear that…

Overall,...

 

Concluding

For this reason,…

Due to this,…

Therefore,…

 

Recommendations

I (strongly) recommend/ my recommendation is to/ it is recommended that…