 Common Mistakes in Business English Writing from EspressoEnglish.net When writing letters and emails for work, it's important to write correctly because mistakes can make your English look unprofessional. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to avoid 10 common mistakes in business English writing. Number one. I am writing in respect of our recent purchase. Instead, you should write, I am writing in reference to, I am writing with regard to, or I am writing regarding or concerning our recent purchase. All of these options are correct, but you can't use in respect of. Number two. We would like to regret the delay. Regret means you feel bad for doing something wrong, so you need to say, we regret the delay, or we would like to apologize for the delay. The word assure is followed by a person. It means to help remove the person's doubt. The word ensure is followed by a fact. Ensure means to help guarantee the fact. So, you should write, I assure you that our products are of the highest quality. We have a quality control process to ensure that every item is free from defects. Again, assure is followed by a person, and ensure is followed by a fact. Number four. Your order will be shipped until Wednesday at the latest. When talking about events that will be completed before a certain day in the future, use buy for a single specific event, and use until for a continuous event. Shipping the order is a single specific event, so we need to use buy. Your order will be shipped by Wednesday at the latest. Here's an example of a continuous action where you need to use until. We will be performing maintenance until the twenty-fifth. The maintenance will be continuous until stopping on the twenty-fifth. Number five. I would like to request some information about your services. In English, the word information is an uncountable noun, so it is never plural. This means we need to write, I would like to request some information about your services. Number six. We accept all major credit cards. The word accept spelled with an A means to receive willingly, and the word accept spelled with an E means to exclude. When speaking, these words are pronounced the same, accept. When writing, we need to make sure to use the correct one. The correct sentence is, we accept with an A all major credit cards. Here's an example of accept with an E used correctly. We offer free shipping to every U.S. state except Alaska and Hawaii. This means Alaska and Hawaii are not included in the free shipping offer. Number seven. We appreciate your cooperate. After articles like A, N, and the, and possessives like my, your, his, her, are, and there, always use a noun, not a verb. Co-operate is a verb. So the correct sentence is, we appreciate your cooperation. Co-operation is the noun form of cooperate. Number eight. I want you to send me the files right now. In professional communications, it's important to be polite, especially when making a request, giving an order, or expressing criticism. A better way to write this sentence is, could you please send me the files as soon as possible? The expression, could you, and including the word please, make the sentence sound more polite. Number nine. The conference begins on Friday, July 8th. It will be held in Los Angeles, California. Not using correct capitalization and punctuation makes a very bad impression in professional communications. In English, we capitalize the first word of each sentence, proper names, names of cities, states, countries, and languages, names of days of the week and months, and the word I. So the correct way to write the sentence is like this. The conference begins on Friday, July 8th. It will be held in Los Angeles, California. We capitalize the first word of each new sentence, the day of the week, Friday, the month, July, and the city and state, Los Angeles, California. Number ten. I look forward to hear from you. After the expression, look forward to, always use a noun or the I-N-G form of the verb. So the correct sentence is, I look forward to hearing from you. Here are two more examples. You can write, I look forward to visiting your company, or I look forward to the visit. In the first case, we use the verb in the I-N-G form, visiting, and in the second case, we use the noun, the visit. Visit espressoenglish.net to take the Business English course, where you can learn practical English for phone calls, interviews, negotiations, meetings, presentations, letters and emails, and more. Thanks for watching!