in this video we are going to look at how to write the perfect email or letter for cambridge b2 first fce including the best structure the different parts of a good email or letter as well as some useful language that will take your game to the next level hi and welcome to teacher fill where i help people like you pass their cambridge exams make sure you subscribe and like the video and also don't forget to check out the full article you can find a link in the description box below so without further ado let's get right into it writing an email or letter for b2 first is a very specific task and you need to know exactly what you have to do there are requirements when it comes to structure layout and even for the language and style that you use in your text in this video we are going to cover all of these areas so you get the confidence you need to become a lot better at writing and to deliver amazing emails and letters the first thing you should always do when you sit down to practice or in the exam is to look at the task and analyze it this is an example of an email writing task the process for letters is exactly the same so you don't have to worry but i wanted to keep the video short so we are only going to focus on this example today i found over the years that there are three specific questions that have helped my students to analyze each and every writing task in b2 first and emails and letters are no exception to this first of all you need to find out what is the topic that you're going to write about knowing the topic helps you understand the mood and the basic idea of your text that can already help you with things like specific vocabulary that you could use as well as the appropriate style in which to write your email or letter in our example here the topic is that your friend david needs your help think about certain words you could use expressions that might be helpful when you want to give advice make recommendations or suggestions so you see from the beginning we can take these questions and we can use them to our advantage the next question you should always ask yourself when you go through a task for fce is what exactly you have to include in your text remember the first question was a little bit more general now however we are going to go into detail looking again at our example task we can see that some of david's friends are coming to your town and they would like to learn a little bit more about the history of the local area david is asking you for two things he would like you to recommend some places where his friends could go to learn a little bit more about your area and he also wants to know what the best mode of transport would be for his friends to get around we should keep these two main topic points in mind when later we look at the specific structure of a good email or letter but first let's look at question number three the third and last question you should ask yourself when looking at and task is who is going to read your text in our example and as we've already discussed your friend david is the reader of your email keep in mind that we are not writing for the examiner or for me for that matter but there's always a specific reader mentioned in each task you might ask yourself now phil why is it so important to know who's going to read my email or my letter or i don't know my essay or whichever task type it might be actually this question is really really important by answering the question in our example our friend david we can decide what the appropriate style or register is for the text when we write to a friend we can feel free to use informal language you might ask now phil what is informal language how does that work don't worry it's actually quite easy informal language means that there are certain things that are welcome in your text for example you can use contractions that means you can for example say don't or isn't instead of do not or is not in informal language we always try to make things shorter and easier that means again contractions are good in informal writing the next point phrasal verbs try to include a few informal phrasal verbs in your writing when you write an informal email or another informal text phrasal verbs are verbs that are combined with prepositions and they often have very specific meanings some of them are rather formal but others are quite informal you could say and use for example hang out meet up and other phrasal verbs like this they work very well in an informal email or any other informal text and last but not least you can also put a few colloquial expressions in your text informal emails are a very good type of text to include them because already when we greet our friend or at the end of our email when we say goodbye we can make things very colloquial and informal so for example in an email you could start with something like hi david how's it going in a formal letter we would never use an expression like this but little words like hi how's it going how has it been are very very nice expressions in informal writing so now that we have all the informal language out of the way and we have analyzed our task with topics and good language we can now look at the structure of a good email or letter the structure and layout of your email or letter are really crucial to the success in the exam imagine you wrote a letter but there's no greeting there's no proper ending and the text just doesn't look like a letter or an email at all in the exam you would lose marks if you made that mistake but luckily you are watching this video so i guess you are ready to avoid these mistakes so when we look at the best possible structure of an email or letter we can divide them up in three basic parts number one an opening formula and a short opening paragraph number two our topic paragraphs and number three a short closing paragraph and a closing formula this works for every single email or letter that you might encounter not only for the exam but even in everyday life so now we are going to look at the different parts of a good email or letter in detail so you know exactly what you have to do in each individual part and how you can make your email or letter stand out in the exam every email or letter begins with an opening formula we can use different expressions to do this but in informal writing we would start with something like hi david or dear david or hello david it's nice and simple and we don't have to think too much just keep in mind do it the way you would write an email to a friend because that's what the task in our example tells us to do following the opening formula should always be a short opening paragraph we want to in a way reply to our friend and acknowledge their email or letter it can be just one or two sentences because remember we always have to look at the word limit of 140 to 190 words in b2 first which means we cannot write a full paragraph at the beginning of the email just asking our friend how he or she is doing so keep it short but don't forget it so here you can see an example of a really good opening formula and opening paragraph you can see i chose an informal greeting at the beginning and the opening paragraph is short and to the point we just acknowledge our friends email and we include the topic of the email and from there we can then continue right into the next part the next part of a great email or letter is always the topic paragraphs the topic paragraphs are the main parts of your writing so they should be the longest and include the most information in our example you might remember that there were two specific things that david asked us for he asked us to recommend some places that his friends can visit and he wanted to know what the best mode of transport is to get around your local area now we have two basic ideas so why not separate them into two topic paragraphs here you can see what these two topic paragraphs might look like once again you can see that they are to the point and that i've used a lot of specific language that can help us when we write an email or letter remember to use informal language and remember to answer david's questions specifically you don't want to go off topic and write about things that are not related to his questions because again we want to stay within the word limit and we just don't want to include irrelevant things so keep it to the point and keep it informal as you can see in the example last but not least we always need to end our email or letter with a short closing paragraph and a closing formula it is in a way a mirror image of the beginning of the email or letter and i find it way too often that students forget about this they simply finish their email after they finish the topic paragraphs but when you keep a typical letter email in mind you will find that there is always at least the name at the end or signature in a letter and we don't want to forget that again you want to keep your closing paragraph short you try to end the email or the letter in a nice and appropriate way and then simply choose a closing formula here again you can look at an example of what that might look like so once again the closing paragraph is short informal and just there to round off the email the closing formula again should be informal so the expressions that we use like best wishes warm regards lots of love love and hugs whatever it is should also be informal if you write an email in a letter we might use other useful language but that is not part of this task specifically so i hope you found my example useful remember that the basic ideas for emails and letters are the same the biggest and really only difference is that emails are usually informal while letters are formal pieces of writing that means you have to adjust your language and the specific expressions that you might use the basic task analysis and structure however are exactly the same and you can use them whenever you sit down to practice or in the actual exam itself if you still want to know more about b2 first writing you can download my free writing cheat sheet i also have an ebook which goes into even more detail it shows you an in-depth analysis of each type of text with useful language tons of examples and a lot of advice on things you should or shouldn't do in the writing exam all the links are in the description box below and i see you next time