In this article, you’ll learn how to write an informal French letter or email from start to finish. An informal letter is often used when you want to write something to someone you know personally. That is why an informal letter is also called a personal letter.
Structure
Below you can see what the structure of a personal French letter looks like:
- Own residence + date
- Salutation
- Letter text
- Closing
- Own name + data
Own residence + date
You start your letter by listing your place of residence. Behind that comes the date. The months in French can be found in the table below. You start the date with the day, followed by the month in French and finally the year. Regardless of which date you use, you have to put the word le for each day of the month. In addition, if you want to indicate the first day of the month, put the letter er (of prime minister) after the 1. An example would then look like this:
anvier | mai | septembre |
février | juin | octobre |
Mars | juillet | novembre |
avril | août | décembre |
Salutation
The salutation is the second sentence in an informal letter. You can simply put this left against the margin. For the salutation in a personal letter, almost the French word for dear or dear is used, namely Cher. How you write this word does depend on the gender of the recipient and whether the recipient is a group. An example looks like this:
Chère … – with a female receiver
Chers … – with a multiple receiver (groups)
Bonjour
Salut
Letter text
Your letter text will be placed here. Just like in a formal letter, you can divide your letter text into, for example, 2 or 3 paragraphs to make it clear for the recipient (s). Often no paragraphs are used because in a private letter it is not a requirement. With a formal letter you do put your letter text in paragraphs, because you often demand something from someone and this comes across as professional. An example for the letter text in an informal French letter would then look like this:
Text | Paragraph 1 | |
Text | or | Paragraph 2 |
Text | Paragraph 3 |
Closing
The closing in an informal French letter is placed below the letter text. With this you can send greetings to someone or ask for an answer. Below are a few examples of closing sentences:
Bien amicalement | Friendly |
Mille amitiés | Good friendship |
Écris-moi vite | write to me soon |
J’espère que tu m’écriras très vite | I hope you will write to me soon |
Codialement | Warmly |
Je t’embrasse, bisous | I kiss you, kisses |
Own name + data
After the conclusion, you enter your first and last name, where you can also add additional information, such as your e-mail address, your telephone number or your address.