The world of public administration speaks many languages these days. But English is the main lingua franca, the most common international language for the world of business and for the world of higher education. So welcome to smart English. This is an opportunity to revise some of the essential language for successful communication. And successful collaboration in English in smart working mode. We begin with written communications, especially emails. Emails and messages are always useful as a quick, and efficient way of communicating without disturbing the other person. And this is even more important when we're in smart working, and we can't see if somebody is free to talk to us or not. Emails also provide a written record of our exchanges, so we don't forget what we decided if we made any decisions. And we cannot say later that we didn't say something if it's written in black and white. Writing mails in a foreign language is not simply a question of translating from our own language. For example, there are some unwritten rules in English about how to structure a mail. Let's have a look at some of these for a moment. So, how do we begin? Well, it's always a good idea to begin with a salutation. It's not compulsory in a mail like it is in a letter, but it is a good idea. And so how do you greet people? Do you say dear sir or dear madam, dear Mrs Smith, or quite simply, dear Jane. Or even just good morning and then after the salutation in English. It's common to explained the reason for writing. And so there are quite a lot of common formulas that people tend to use in specific types of mails. For example, if you're asking for information or if you need to apologize to someone. Or even nudge someone because they didn't reply to your mail yet. Phrases like could I ask for clarification or I wanted to apologize for. And many of us, when we write in a foreign language, we worry about how we express ourselves. We worry that our email doesn't create the impression that we wanted to but we didn't say what we meant on. So it's not only a question of being formal or polite, but we often ask ourselves questions, difficult questions like, do I sound rude? Is my mail too long? Am I too short, am I boring. Do I sound arrogant? How can I sound warm and friendly, and how can I sound positive? There are some basic rules to remember. One of these is don't use capital letters because they sound like you're shouting, I'll say that's not a good idea? Try not to repeat the same information, because again the reader might be offended at the end of writing the male. Try to check your work to make sure you haven't made any basic mistakes, like with the spellings, spelling the person's name correctly, for example, because that would indicate a lack of care or maybe even respect. Of course, for the tone, it's always a good idea to read the mail out loud before you press send. If you like the way the mail sounds, then most likely the person you're writing to will like it, to and conversely, if you think your mail sounds cold or negative, then probably you need to adjust it. One last thing if we want to include an attachment. It's probably a good idea to attach the document before we write the mail, because when we finished writing. It's so easy to just press send on. Forget the attachment, which again doesn't create a good impression when we have to write again with the attachment. Anyway, we hope that this unit will help you to practice your email writing skills in English on that, by the end of it, you feel more confident, enjoy.