Unit 2- Writing Informal Letters

What is an informal letter?

An informal letter is a non-official letter that is usually written to friends, family or relatives.
These letters are personal letters that are not used for official purposes. There could be many
reasons for which we write these letters to our family and friends. The following are some of the
common types of informal letters people write:
 Inviting a friend for a ceremony say for a birthday
 Calling a friend for a trip or holiday
 Asking sorry or apologizing to someone for mistakes you have done
 Congratulating a friend for his success or achievement
 Writing just to ask for the well-being of a person
 Invitation for a marriage
 Asking help from someone
 Informing about someone’s demise in family or friends
Components:

1. Address of the sender

2. Date of writing a letter
3. Address of receiver
4. Salutation/Greeting
5. Body of the letter
6. Conclusion
7. Signature of the sender

Format:

[Address of the Sender]

Date:

Dear (name of person)

Body of the letter:

Paragraph 1: Ask for the well-being of the person

Paragraph 2: The main reason to write the letter
Paragraph 3: Conclusion and end of the letter

Yours lovingly,
Name of sender
Address
The first thing to write is your address, i.e. the address of the writer (basically, the sender’s
address). We usually write the address on the left-hand side of the page at the very top. The
address should be accurate and complete.

Even when writing to close friends or relatives the address must be written, so they can reply
back to the letter with ease. If the recipient of the letter is in another country, do not forget to
write your country as well in the address.

Date

Next just below the address we write the date. This allows the reader to have a reference as to
when the informal letter was written. He can then relate better to the contents of the letter. The
date, preferably, should be in expanded form.

Greeting

 If it is a friend or someone close to your age, greet them by their first name, like ‘Dear
Magesh’ or ‘and so on.
 If you are writing to your relatives like your mother/father/aunt/uncle, greet them as such,
for example, Dear uncle’ or ‘Dear daddy’
 If you are writing to an elder person, someone you respect greatly you can address them
as Mr. or Mrs. E.g., you were writing a congratulatory letter to your teacher, it can be
addressed as ‘Dear sir’, ‘Dear Ma’am, ‘Dear Mrs. Alex’.

Body of the letter

Paragraph 1

The introductory paragraph or paragraph 1 sets the tone for the whole letter. It can begin in two
ways:
1.Asking the recipient about their wellbeing
2. Saying that you hope the letter finds them in good health and great spirits.
The opening of informal letters should be casual and comforting, and not be formal and direct
as in business letters.

Paragraph 2

Here, the main purpose of letter is introduced. As far as the tone is concerned, a friendly tone
should be maintained throughout.
The language and wordings should be chosen based on who the letter is addressed.
 To a friend, the writer can afford to be very casual.
 If the letter is written to an elder person in the family or a friend, the language and choice
of words must be extremely respectful and considerate.
[The tone should be similar to how you talk to the person in a conversation.]
Paragraph 3 (Conclusion)

In the conclusive paragraph,

 sum up the reason for writing the letter
 end the letter with ‘goodbye’ or ‘take care’ to the reader.
 Finally, invite the reader to write back or reply to your letter.

Signature

One of the following complementary close may be used:

 Lots of Love,
 Best,
 Best Wishes,
 Kind Regards,
 Kindly,
Sample letters:
Ref: https://www.aplustopper.com/informal-letter/