A Formal Email (正式邮件)

A formal Chinese email is a small, rigid piece of theater, and every line has a role. It opens with an honorific bow (尊敬的), elevates the reader while lowering the writer (贵公司 vs 我公司), swaps every everyday word for its written twin (与 for 跟, 烦请 for 请), and closes with a two-line formula (此致 / 敬礼) that has been standard for a century. Because the frame is fixed, learning one good email teaches you all of them. This page reads a complete business email — a request for cooperation — and pairs each formal expression with the spoken word you would use with a friend.

The email

Grammar in this text

1. The honorific / humble axis: 尊敬的, 您, 贵 vs 我 / 敝

Chinese politeness works on two moving parts at once: you raise the addressee and lower yourself. The email raises Manager Wang with 尊敬的 ("respected," the standard letter-opener before a title), the polite pronoun 您 (nín) throughout, and above all 贵公司 — where 贵 (guì, literally "honorable / expensive") is a prefix that means "your (esteemed)." It pairs with a matching set of humble self-references: against 贵公司 the writer sets 我公司 ("our company"), and in stiffer correspondence you may even meet 敝公司 (bì gōngsī, "my humble company") or 敝人 ("my humble self"). The honorific and humble words come in pairs — 贵姓/免贵, 贵公司/敝公司, 令尊/家父 — and using one half signals you know the other. See humble and honorific pairs and formal address and honorifics.

2. 与 — the written coverb "with"

Four times the email says 与 (yǔ) where speech would say 跟 or 和: 与您联系, 与您商量, 与贵公司…合作. 与 is the bookish coverb for "with / and," reserved for writing, titles and formal speech; swapping it back to 跟 instantly makes the sentence conversational (我想跟你商量一件事). It behaves exactly like 跟 — 与 + person + verb — only the register differs. See the coverb 与 / 同 'with', its spoken counterpart 跟 / 和 'with', and the table of formal/spoken function-word pairs.

3. 烦请, 敬请 — humble request verbs

Instead of a bare 请, the email softens each request with a two-syllable humble verb: 烦请 ("may I trouble you to…," 烦 = "to trouble") and 敬请 ("respectfully invite you to…," 敬 = "to respect"): 烦请您回复, 敬请查收, 敬请谅解. These lower the writer by framing the request as an imposition on the reader's kindness — the same instinct behind spoken 麻烦您 ("trouble you") and 请您, only more elevated. They are the polish that keeps a demand from sounding like an order. See requests with 请 / 麻烦 and the broader toolkit of softening devices.

4. The epistolary frame: 现有一事 … 此致敬礼

A formal letter has a skeleton you can reuse verbatim. It opens the body with 现 ("now," written) plus a set phrase — 现有一事 ("I now have a matter"), 现将…, 特此… — which flags "here comes my point." It closes with the century-old two-line salute 此致 / 敬礼: 此致 (cǐ zhì, "herewith I extend [my respects]") ends the body, and 敬礼 ("[my] respectful salute") sits on the next line, conventionally flush left. Below them go the signature and the date, the date written out in full (二〇二六年七月十八日). The learner's job is not to parse 此致敬礼 word by word — even natives treat it as one frozen sign-off — but to place it correctly. See letter and email conventions.

5. Classical 之, and the whole register in one table

The final ornament is 之 (zhī) — the Literary Chinese ancestor of modern 的 — surviving in fixed formal phrases like 不便之处 ("point of inconvenience") and 意料之中 ("as expected"). You would never say 之 in conversation; there it is plainly 的 (不方便的地方). One more pair the brief hints at: written 欲 ("wish to") for spoken 想. Every choice in the email is a rung on the formality ladder, and it helps to see the pairs together — the same axis you met in the job ad. See spoken vs written register and the classical particle 之.

Vocabulary

Key Takeaways

• Politeness moves two parts at once: raise the reader (尊敬的, 您, 贵公司) and lower yourself (我公司 / 敝公司); the words come in matched pairs.
• 与 is the written "with"; swap it to 跟 / 和 and the sentence becomes spoken.
• 烦请 / 敬请 are humble request verbs — softer, higher versions of 请 / 麻烦.
• The letter has a fixed skeleton: open the body with 现有一事…, close with the frozen two-line 此致 / 敬礼, then signature and full date.
• Classical 之 (= 的) and 欲 (= 想) are the last touches of register; keep a formal↔spoken pair list and you can dial any message to the right level.