Sample email - business

Here is a sample email you could use to send to a research friend abroad who is worried about you.

Dear Dr. Brown,

Thank you for your email regarding the situation in Tsukuba.

The first earthquake in March did damage some of our equipment but our building is structurally okay. No one was injured at all. Mostly we just had a lot of cleaning up to do.

The aftershocks yesterday didn’t cause any further damage, and we expect work will continue as normal.

Thank you for your concern and I’m looking forward to seeing you at the ABC Symposium in May.

Best regards,

Taro Tanaka

And here are some sample phrases you can use:

Thank you for your email.

Thank you for your kind email.

Thank you for your recent email and I apologize for my late reply.

Everyone is fine. I’ve heard that there no-one was injured in Tsukuba, which is great news.

My laboratory suffered some slight damage, but the building is fine.

Some equipment was broken but we think it can be repaired.

Unfortunately, some equipment was broken and it will take some time to repair or replace it.

It was such a large quake that the utilities were cut for many hours. Unfortunately, our backup generators failed because they had no water to cool the motors and our refrigerators were down. We lost all our samples. I guess it will take several months to recover them.

Our project is still on track and we’ll be able to meet the deadline.

Our project will be delayed by several months.

I’m sorry, but the symposium has been postponed until further notice.

I’m very sorry to have to tell you that our project has been put on hold until further notice.

We’ve decided to move the project to our lab in the west of Japan for the next several months.

Could I ask for an extension on the deadline? I’ll be able to complete the work by May 25th, 2011.