How to Write a Personal Letter

Hello Friends...

Sure, we all are doing well... Be careful, we must stay fit and shouldn't fall ill getting our studies affected. We shall eat and drink healthy, exercise regularly, and won't avoid our domestic and social responsibilities. And whatever time we get for ourselves at the end of the day, we must study hard for most of the time, so that we learn to think... and learn. We simply cannot afford to stop thinking, for we are learners, and we are the chosen ones who got the scope to learn...

Let's learn to think first...

Do we need to write letters at all?

Have you ever written a letter to anyone? Have you ever received a letter from anyone either?

Maybe your answer to both of the questions is a 'no'.

But, if you ask me, I think that you all regularly write to and receive 'letters' from others. Don't you ever write notes on chits of paper and pass them to your friends to continue your 'important' conversation avoiding the interference of the teacher in your class?

Well, that's a very basic form of a letter you choose to write to or you receive from your friends.

Types of Letters

Rather, we should say that these are very basic types of personal letters. Obviously, you don't write on such chits to the principal or the head of your institution. Whenever you write to the head of your institution, you write it quite delicately on a whole piece of paper, right? Yes, you must do so when you write a formal business/official letter.

So, now you realise that you write not only some basic forms of personal letters, but full-fledged formal letters to the head of your institution asking for leave or mercy as well.

But today we won't take up the issue of writing formal letters, rather we would choose to focus upon writing personal letters.

Personal Letters

The Recipient/Addressee

Who receives your notes written on such small chits of paper? Your friends, right? Only near and dear ones… Your principal is never expected to receive such a note from you.

That's the point I want to make. We write personal letters to near and dear ones, and never to people with whom we are formally related. Even if your dad/mom is the principal of your school, when you write to him/her requesting for an early leave, you write a formal letter, right? You do it so because you write as a student and not as a son/daughter, and you write to your principal and not to your parent.

The Reasons Behind

When do you write such short letters to your friends? Only when they are not present there to be directly spoken to, right? Or, when you have the teacher present there to stop you from talking to your friends directly. In any way, you write only when you can not communicate directly…

This is the time when personal letters used to come handy. People used to write letters when others were away, and not available for a direct chat.

Other Options

Today, however, you choose to phone your friend who is away, right? Or you leave a voice-message/mail if your friend is not available to receive your phone. 

Advantages of Writing Letters

Still, people sometimes choose to write the old school letters as they have connectivity issues in remote or rural areas.

And, importantly, some prefer to write even though they have good connectivity as they get the scope to imprint their personal touch when they write letters.

Why do you choose to make a card when you can greet your friend on New Year's Day over the telephone? Because you want to make your greeting special. You decorate your card, you stylize your script, especially to convey a customised message to your friend. And moreover, it's easier for one to preserve these letters and to get back to them in case one feels nostalgic. But it's difficult to do so in case of telephone calls, right?

Would you like to learn about writing personal letters in details then?

Studying a Few Examples

Let's start by studying a few personal letters written by others. You need not worry, we are not going to sneak into others privacy, but are going to study how such letters are written in real life:

Source: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/810507264160042028/

Source: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/7810999339293353/

Source: http://www.perfectyourenglish.com/businessenglish/informal-letter-to-brother.htm

Source:

https://www.yeslearners.com/2016/12/how-to-write-personal-friendly-informal-letter.html?m=1

Source: http://www.perfectyourenglish.com/businessenglish/informal-letter-to-friend.html

Well, these letters are written by different people for different purpose. But, haven't you found anything in common in all the five above letters?

The Structure

Yes, all these letters are more less formatted or structured the same way. Though personal letters can be customised by us in a thousand way we would like to write to our near and dear ones, it is quite commonly observed that we mostly follow more or less the same structure while writing a personal or an informal letter. And I am afraid to say that in your examination hall you should not experiment too much with the format or structure of such a letter, lest your examiner might not be able to appreciate your creativity.

How are these letters formatted, by the way?

1. Yes, they all start with some address and date.

2. Then the person to whom the letter is being written is greeted.

3. Then the person who is writing the letter says what he or she has to say.

4. And finally the person who writes the letter signs off.

Shall we now take up these aspects one by one to discuss in detail?

1. What is an address?

It's basically a direction to reach a particular place. And there is a convention to write an address. We need to remember that we begin from the exact location and go on giving directions as long as it is needed for someone to reach that place.

What to Refer in an Address

Hence, most commonly we begin with the number or name of the building where we live. It is expected to be along a lane or a street, and hence we refer to it next. Then comes the colony, or the locality. If your locality is along a road or avenue, you refer to it. The particular locality is served by a particular post office. We refer to the post office and then to the district. If we need to direct further we refer to the state, and to the country, if required. So a typical address may include the following information:

• Number/name of the building or premises
• Street/lane or some other landmark
• Colony or locality
• Road
• Post office along with the postal code [PIN]
• District
• State or province
• Country

Do we need to refer to each and every bit of information that we have listed above? Not necessarily. We do have our buildings numbered in urban spaces but not in the rural areas. There the population being sparse, people know each other more than they do in urban pockets. They need not know the number of a particular building to reach a particular person. However, in urban settings it's a must to know the number of the building to reach a particular person. So I do hope you get it clear that we write our addresses according to the requirements.

If you intend to write to your friend in some other country than yours, you need to refer to the country. However if you write to your friend within your country you may just choose to refer to the state or province where your friend stays if that is different from yours at all. But if you are writing within the same state or province, it is common that you would refer to only the district if your friend stays in some other district. But if both of you stay within the same district you are expected to write the address only up to the post office if they're different.

How far do you think you should write the address if your friend stays within the jurisdiction of the same post office? Maybe you don't write a letter at all then. You go and visit your friend in person at his or her place and have your conversation, right? Or even if you choose to write, you deliver it yourself or you choose a friend to do the job instead of involving the postal department.

How to Write an Address

It is customary to refer to a single piece of information in a single line. If you feel that you can easily fit two pieces of information in a single line, it is always expected that you separate them with a comma. Presently most of us prefer not to use a comma at the end of a line while writing addresses. It is always better to write it aesthetically. So we should align the lines while writing addresses in a particular order or sequence rather than writing them haphazardly.

Where to Write One's Own Address

A person writing the letter chooses to write his or her own address either at the left hand topmost corner of the page or at the right hand top most corner of the page.

Hands on

My own address following the above discussion may be written like this:

G-B, Ahana Apartment

66, DumDum Road

P.O. Motijheel-700074

Kolkata

West Bengal

India

Why don't you try to write down your own address? Feel free to ask me about it if you face a problem.

The Reason We Don't Write Our Names

We should however must remember that it is not customary to write our own names when we write our addresses while writing personal letters. Personal letters are written to our near and dear ones who obviously know our names.

The Reason We Have to Write Our Addresses

Then why do we need to write our addresses? Our near and dear ones certainly know where we live. It is very likely that they have even visited us at our places. But at the same time, you must remember, addresses are very minutely written directions to reach us, and our friends may not remember our addresses exactly as they are required to be written on the envelope. We write our complete address on the top of our letters to remind our friends our addresses. 

Moreover, we may not write a letter while being at our original place. Maybe you have been out of the station for a while. If you want your friend to reply at your place of temporary stay, you must provide him or her with that address, right? When your friend is going to reply, s/he is going to write your complete address [that you have written on the top of your letter] on the envelope before s/he posts her/his letter.

You need to write your friend's address on the envelope before you post your letter as well, just as you have written yours on the top of your letter. I am sure that you have your friend's earlier letters with you. You can easily get her/his address from those letters.

Who do you think requires this address on the envelope when you write a letter? Yes, the postal department, of course. They need the address of the person to whom we write the letter in order to deliver the letter to him or her.

Mentioning the Date

And writing dates is certainly very important. It helps our friends to understand the context of our letter in a better way. And don't you think it might also help us to track how long the postal department has taken to deliver the letter?

2. Greeting

Ways of greeting others differ from culture to culture and therefore it is different in different languages. In English we have different ways to greet others both formally as well as informally. We may use expressions like 'my dear' or 'dear' to greet a person irrespective of the relation, his/her age, and gender in both formal and informal contexts.

Why don't you study some more letters on your own and make a list of the expressions used to greet the addressee?

3. Message in the Letter

As it comes to the body of the letter, one has to write what he or she requires to say. It depends upon the context, and you will understand it with time as we study more and more letters.

4. Signing off

The ways we sign off our letters can vary widely again. You may study different letters written by different people to note down the ways you would prefer to sign off your own letters. However, I may help you at the beginning by pointing out that we may sign off our letters, be it formal or informal, to anybody- irrespective of our relation, age, and gender by saying 'Yours truly'.

5. Address of the Addressee

Though we don't find the address of the addressee, that is the person to whom the letter is being written, in any of the sample letters that we have studied till so far, it is a very important part of letter writing. If your letter goes without the address of the addressee it won't reach the person intended anyway, right? After you finish writing your letter, you need to put it in an envelope, seal it and write the address of the person to whom you have written the letter on the top of the envelope, and affix due postage/stamps.

A Word of Caution

Now we have already learnt how to write addresses. But make it sure that you write the name of the person to whom you have written your letter this time. Otherwise the concerned post man would never be able to deliver the letter to the person.

For the Purpose of Examination

If you are writing your letter in the examination hall, you are supposed to draw a box as an envelope, draw another box at the right hand topmost corner as the stamp affixed on the envelope, and have to write the address inside the 'envelope' box as the 'real' address on the 'real' envelope in the 'real' world.

How about reading another letter, now?

Would you like to reply to Kanan as Nirmal? You may choose to accept the invitation, or you may gently let Kanan know that you would be otherwise busy the next month. Don't forget to thank Kanan anyway.

Do you find the task too demanding? Ok, here is a probable reply from Nirmal below. Study it closely before you start writing your own. Don't forget to format the letter as you have learnt to if you find it differently formatted:

Feel free to ask me in case you have any question in your mind.