And the funny thing is, he wants something from me, and not the other way around, but you’d never know that from his obstinate coldness. It’s as if I’m not worth being acknowledged because I’m less then human. I feel really slighted when people do this to me. But it feels so cold to me and makes me feel like an idiot for having greeted him 3 times already, and never got a hint of a greeting in return. I suppose since he initiated the exchange, I should have followed his lead and omitted the greeting in mine. I always replied to him with a greeting of “Hi (First Name),”. He initiated our brief email exchange with no greeting. We have never emailed each other till recently. This is such a good article, and one which I am experiencing right now with a business associate. Honestly, it takes 3 seconds.Īnd if it’s been a while, maybe a week or so, sure, a little greeting like “I hope you’re doing well” or “I hope you had good weekend” never hurts. If it’s a conversation during a day, like if you’re collaborating with a colleague on an ongoing project, you can cut straight to the chase.īut if you haven’t emailed the other person for a day or two, go ahead and put a quick “Hi Anna,” (or whatever their first name is). If you’re emailing someone for the first time that day, a quick greeting won’t hurt. There’s no hard rule about it, but I want to give you some quick guidelines you can use. It’s just a little lack of etiquette at worse they forgot that social cues get lost in writing. If someone does it to you, it’s not nice, but they probably don’t want to be rude. As you get more familiar with the other person, you might even drop the introduction, so it can be a sign of friendliness!Īnyway, the worst case scenario is probably skipping the introduction when emailing someone for the first time. The way we view email conversations is more a personal than a cultural difference, so they’ll always be some time of adaptation with each person you meet. You wouldn’t say “Hello” to your friend every time you start a new sentence in messenger, would you? We type it on our phone, and we treat a series of emails as a flowing conversation. Emails used to be treated as letters, but now they tend to be seen almost as instant messaging. The second reason is close to the first, but much more common. So we’ll write the minimum, and “Hi Anna, how are you?” gets cut. The first one is when it’s the best we can do: when we don’t really have time to respond properly, but we still want to send the information. However, there are two main reasons we would skip the greetings. Most Americans will write an introduction on most emails they send from their computers, just like they would on a letter. Or at least, not a national cultural difference. Let me reassure you: it’s not a cultural difference. Well, don’t worry, we’ll figure out what to do! What’s the deal with email introductions? She knows it’s probably a minor misstep anyway, so it would be weird if she bring it up to Paul, yet she’d like to know more. Then Anna gets worried: is Paul writing normally, and she is the one lacking etiquette when she starts all her emails with “Hello” and “How are you” ? Maybe adding such a personal introduction is not OK in American culture?Īnna notices she’s confused. It’s direct: there’s no greetings like “Hi Anna,” “Hello” or even “Dear Anna”… She feels confused: is Paul being rude? Is he upset? Aggressive? The message starts with “Do you have last year’s sales report?”. Let’s say that Anna just received an email from Paul, an American colleague. Great question, Michael, let’s look at this one! A short story: Should I do the same? Should I stop being polite and just go to the point next time?” And today, he answered with no “hi” or anything… Just answering right away my question. Today I want to help you with your emails.Ĭommenter Michael had a great question: “I always start my email to my franchisor by “hope everything’s ok” or stuff like that. Hi there! I’m your English coach Christina, welcome to Speak English with Christina, where you’ll learn American culture and business know-how to become confident in English.
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