{"id":3122,"date":"2011-07-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-17T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nllanguagep-bali.savviihq.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/do-your-english-emails-really-say-what-you-want-them-to\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T13:10:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T11:10:18","slug":"do-your-english-emails-really-say-what-you-want-them-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagepartners.nl\/en\/blog\/english\/do-your-english-emails-really-say-what-you-want-them-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Do your English emails really say what you want them to?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do your English emails really say what you want them to, or are you unknowingly offending some of your business contacts?<\/h2>\n

With email becoming the main method of communication in the business world, it is becoming more and more important to do it well. These days, many people never get to meet colleagues or clients personally and most of the time they do not even get to speak to them on the telephone. In fact, the only impression others may have of them is the one they get when they read their email messages.<\/p>\n

When I tell people that I teach English to the Dutch<\/a>, the usual reaction I get is \u201cWhy, the Dutch already all speak such good English?\u201d\u00a0 and in some respects that is true. As a nation, the Dutch have a natural flair for languages and tend to pick them up very quickly. However, they nearly always tend to be far more fluent than they are accurate and, because their pronunciation is generally easier to understand than other nationalities when they are speaking English, this gives the impression that their English is far better than it really is. When the Dutch are put in Business<\/a> or Legal<\/a> contexts, this can be even more impactful.<\/p>\n

All of this is fine in conversational English, where mistakes can easily be overlooked when people can hear through your intonation that what you are saying is meant to be friendly or humorous. However, this becomes a different matter with emails, which are generally informal and people tend to write and send them very quickly. It is then the receiver who has to interpret the tone and deal with the mistakes that can lead to misunderstanding.<\/p>\n

Typical mistakes<\/h3>\n

Typical mistakes that Dutch people make in emails in English include the following:<\/p>\n