IELTS books and teachers sometimes talk about formal, semi-formal, and informal letters. But a student asked me an interesting question recently:
Can we make things easier by forgetting about "semi-formal"?
Actually, I think the answer is yes! When writing to a colleague or neighbour, you can write in a friendly, informal way using the informal features mentioned in this lesson. I can't really think of any reason why we need the "semi-formal" category for IELTS writing purposes. Your letter will be either formal or friendly!
Note:
Feel free to disagree with me if you can find a reason why we need the semi-formal category. Maybe I've missed something.
Hi Simon!
I've just received the IELTS result. I've got 8.0 overall (Listening: 8.5, Reading: 7.5, W: 7.5 and Sp: 7.5). I'm very happy with that as it's higher than my expectation. Thank you so much for the great website and support that you have given. Without your support I'm sure that I couldn't reach my goal. I found your website very helpful and I will recommend it to my friends. Once again, thank you very much.
Posted by: Quy | Monday, June 11, 2012 at 05:41
Dear Simon,
I do not know that what tense should I use in this exercise.Could I use past tense for it? Here is the question:
http://www.ielts-exam.net/academic_writing_samples_task_1/164/
Posted by: Anh | Monday, June 11, 2012 at 07:26
Excellent scores Quy. Well done!
...
Hi Anh,
I really think you should ask the author of that website about his/her lessons.
Posted by: Simon | Monday, June 11, 2012 at 11:25