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ESSAY WRITING: INFORMAL LETTER
Features
Informal letters are private or personal letters. They are letters we write to people who are very familiar to us such as our parents, relatives, friends, classmates and other people with whom we have close relationship.
Table of Contents
FEATURES OF AN INFORMAL LETTER
Writer’s address
Salutation e.g. first name as in
‘Dear Peter’,Dear John’,
‘Dear Joyce’, Dear Father or you include “My”
“d” must be small when “My” is included e.g. My dear Mother
Introduction
It is best to start with acknowledging the receipt of a letter written to you by the person. You may also start by asking after the person’s health or any other way you like.
Body of the letter: Do exactly what the questions says you should do to earn more marks.
Subscript: Informal letters close with “Yours sincerely”. However, a few other forms are accepted such as “Yours affectionately”, “Your loving daughter, “With love from” e.t.c. These are usually written at the bottom right hand of the page. No signature is required. Write your first name and put a full stop like this:
Yours sincerely,
Andrew
Yours ever,
Lizzy
or Yours affectionately,
Andrew Scott
EVALUATION
Write a letter to your sister who plans to divorce her husband advising her against the decision.
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STRUCTURE: DEFINITE AND INDEFINITE ARTICLES
TYPES OF ARTICLES
Articles can be definite or indefinite
INDEFINITE ARTICLES
“A” and “AN” are indefinite articles and are used to indicate indefinite references to a noun. While ”a” is used before a word starting with a consonant sound such as boy, goat, house, hoe, elephant, airplane, etc. NOTE that the following words begin in consonant sounds despite having vowel letters starting them. They must therefore attract article ‘A’, e.g Europe as in A European man, University as in A university. Others include Eucharist, Eunuch, unit, union, uniform, etc,
“an” is used before words that start with vowel sounds.
Examples: an egg, an apple, an orange.
NOTE that the following words have a silent ‘h’ and they must attract article ‘an’. E.g. an hour, an honest, an honor. But words like house, home, hoe, etc attract the article ‘a’ because they do not have the silent sound ‘h’, e.g., a house, a hoe, etc.
DEFINITE ARTICLE “The”
This refers to a particular person or thing (i.e. a definite reference)
How the definite and indefinite articles are used:
| Noun type | Indefinite reference | Definite reference |
| Singular count noun | A desk | The – the desk |
| Plural count noun
Non-count noun |
Some – some books
Some water |
The – the books
The – the water |
All nouns use “the as the word that makes definite reference. So, “the” is a definite article making reference.
Uses of the definite article “the”
When there is only one of the things being referred to– the sun, the moon, the wind, the rainfall.
When the hearer or the reader is able to know which particular thing or things are being referred to:
Could you give me the bag under the bed?
(Both the bag and the bed are already known to the speaker and the listener)
The letter in the envelope.
‘The’ is also used before the title of a newspaper. E.g The Punch, The Nation etc.
(Both the letter and the envelope are also known)
Descriptive Use
Here the definite article describes a noun.
The accused was acquitted for want of evidence.
She has the courage of Esther.
Generic Use
Here, the definite article is used to refer to what is normal or typical for a member of a class.
The banana is found mainly in the Southern
The tiger is a very ferocious animal.
It is used before the noun, indicating that there can be only one such thing or group of things.
The Soviet Union
The Principal
The Minister of Education
________ European woman was here before
I know that _______rich also cry.
I desire to become _______ heir of God’s kingdom.
Joseph dreamt that ______ sun, ____ moon and ____ star bowed to him.
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SPEECH WORK: MORE ON CONSONANTS
CONTENT: CONSONANTS /b/, /d/, /f/, /g/, /dz/, /h/, /k/
/b/voiced bilabial plosive
Spelling variants and word examples are
“b” –baby, bank, break, barber, lab, embark,
“bb” – rubber, robber, babble, e.t.c.
/p/- voiceless bilabial plosive
Spelling variants and words examples:
“p” – pain, people, leap, leper, emperor
“gh” – hiccough
/f/ -voiceless labiodental fricative:
Spelling variants and words examples are:
“f” – form, frog, faith, fruit, proof, soft
“ff” – cliff, stuff, sniff, cuff, huff,
“gh” – rough, tough, cough, enough,
“ph” – physics, physical, Philip, phantom
“v” – Gorbachev, Volkswagen
/g/- voiced velar plosive
Spelling variants and words examples are:
“g” – goat, gun, bag, vogue, vigor, garnish, goose, gamble, group,
“gg” – haggle, baggage, baggy, struggle, bigger, shaggy
“gh” – ghost, aghast, getto, ghoul
/dz/
Spelling variants and words examples are:
“j” – jug, junior, Jew
“ge”- germinate, damage, badge, germ
“gi”- ginger, giant, giraffe, gigantic
“gy” – technology, archaeology, gym
“du” – educate, graduate, gradual, due
/h/ _ voiceless glottal fricative
Spelling variants and word examples are
“h” – hope, horse, holy, perhaps, hunger
“wh” – whole, wholly, who, whose,
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