1. Letters of invitation

2. Introduction An invitation letter serves the purpose of inviting a guest to a party, an event or a celebration while conveying more information than a traditional invitations card. It serves two purposes; one, to invite the individual to the event and two, to ensure that the person receiving the letter is going to attend. The professional invitation should be written in a formal tone, even when being sent to friends and family members, if the letter is also being sent to professional contacts. Friendly invitation letters are used for a variety of reasons from engagement parties and showers to wedding invitations. They can also be used for personal parties and showers as well as housewarming get together. Personal invitation letters should be signed with a less formal sign off, such as; yours sincerely, best, or sincerely.

3. You should learn to: 1. The commonly used vocabulary and commonly used sentence patterns of letters of invitation. 2. The format of the letters of invitation. 3. Write your own letters of invitation.

4. Lead in the commonly used vocabulary and commonly used sentence patterns 1. A previous engagement 先前的预定 2. Engagement 约会 3. Luncheon 午餐招待会 4. To be present 出席 5. Request the pleasure of someone ‘s company 邀请某人作客 6. Present one’s compliments 致以问候 7. I’d like…. to come to dinner 非常希望 … 共进晚餐 8.Request the pleasure of 恭请 …. 9.The favor of a reply is requested 敬赐复函

5. 10.May I have the honor of your company at dinner? 敬备菲酌，恭请光临。 11.I hope you ’re not too busy to come. 我期望您会在白忙之中光临 12.The reception will be held in…on… 招待会定于 … 在 … 举行 13.We sincerely hope you can attend 我们期待您的光临 14.We are looking forward to …. 我们期待着 … 15.We have decided to have a party in honor of the occasion 为此我们据定举办一次晚会 16. Please confirm your participation at your earliest convenience 是否参加，请早日告知

6. 邀请吃饭 1.If you’re not busy, we’d love to have you over for a dinner. 2.You must join us for supper. 3.We are having a potluck at my place on Saturday. 4.We will have a dinner party tonight. 5.I was wondering if you would like to come over for lunch tomorrow. 6.It would give us great pleasure to have a dinner with you. 7.Will you come and dine with us? 8.I should be honered if you were able to come to the banquet. 9.We should be so pleased if you could come. 10.Don’t forget to bring your wife. 11.May we have the pleasure of your company at dinner? 12.We’d very much like to have dinner with you. 13.Our Managing Director would like to have the pleasure of inviting you to a cocktail party. 14.I’ll ick you up at 7:00 pm, if it’s ok with you. 15.The reception will be held in…, on…. 16.We sincerely hope you can attend. 17.We are loking forward to…

7. 邀请参加聚会  1.I earnt to invite you to a party.  2.I hope you will join us.  3.We have decided to have a party in honor of the occasion.  4.We’d like you to come.  5.Would you like to go to the party with me?  6.Will you join us?  7.Can you come over and join us?

8. 邀请参加会议 1.We are planning to have a meeting about the promotion of personal computers this Thursday afternoon. 2.We’ll be greatly honored if you attend it. 3.I’m writing for an invitation wit Mr. Li to a meeting for our manager. 4.We’ll be glad if you can come to attend our meeting. 5.Could we have the honor of your presence at the meeting? 6.If you could manage, we’d like you to attend our speech contest on Thursday morning. 7.We thought you might like to participate in our rehearsal. 8.I need to make an invitation with Mrs. Li to a meeting for our manager. 9.I hope you are planning to attend the annual convention of National Association of Teachers of Homemaking in Minneapolis June 4 through 7. 10.I hope you’re not too busy to come. 11.Please confirm your participation at your earliest convenience.

9. 邀请参观访问 1.Honestly we invite you to visit China to review the market and discuss the cooperation. 2.We’ll have refreshments and a buffet, followed by a guided tour of the sections of our plant that we think will interest you most, including our famous recipe testing center. 3.There’s an exhibition at the museum, so we can go and take a look on Thursday. 4.I shall feel obliged if you will favor me with a call at your earliest convenience. 5.Please favor me with an early reply. 6.Hoping that the matter will be dealt with as soon as possible.

10.  Sample 1  Directions :you want to invite Mr. Williams to give a lecture on “American literature" in your college. Suppose you are the assistant of the English department, write a letter and say:  the purpose of the invitation.  the time of the lecture  Your letter should be no less than 100 words. You don’t need to write the address. Don’t sign your own name at the end of the letter, use Linda instead.

11.  June 25, 2008  Dear Mr. Williams,  I am writing on behalf of the English Department to invite you to give a lecture in our college. We know that you are an expert on American literature. As English majors, our students would like to know something about American literature. We would be very grateful if you could give a talk on “Contemporary American Literature” to student of the English Department on Saturday, June 4.If this subject does not suit you, any other similar topic would be welcome as well.  We have already had several very interesting talks from distinguished visitors from various countries and we look forward early to the opportunity to benefit from your experience and wisdom.  Yours truly,  Linda

12.  Sample 2  Dear Beckham ，  First of all ， please allow me to express my heartfelt invitation to you. Since the Spring Festival is coming shortly ， I sincerely invite you to come to China and spend the holiday with me.  Spring Festival is of much importance to Chinese people. It has a long history and Chinese have attached much importance to the holiday. To be exact ， the Spring Festival has been the most significant holiday. The Spring Festival is to Chinese what Christmas is to the Westerners.  If you come ， I am going to accompany you to fairgrounds （庙会）， where you can have a close look at some of the Chinese traditions.  I am looking forward to your reply.  Sincerely Yours  Li Ying

13.  Practice  1.Directions: You are required to write a Letter according to the following information given in Chinese.  说明：跟据下列内容写一封邀请信。  写信日期： 2005 年 12 月 13 日  邀请人：张建国， 东方集团人力资源部经理  被邀请人： 人事部经理  是由 : 召开人事管理研讨会  主要内容： 研讨新形势下人事管理的新模式新方法  主要报告人： 滨海大学管理学院丁易教授  会议时间： 2006 年 1 月 3~4 日  会议地点：滨海市友谊宾馆  请与会人员在 12 月 20 日前将发言提纲寄给东方集团人力资 源部办公室。参加会议与否，请回复。

14. Translation:  Dear …  You are cordially invited to a formal dinner in honor of Jack on October21,2006,at 8p.m.at the Boise Hilton.  Mrs. Smith, as you are an associate of Jack, we would like you to speak briefly about his work in the lumber industry. If this is possible, please let me know within the next week.  Please mote that this is a black-tie event. RSVP with the names of those attending by October 14.  Sincerely yours,

15.  亲爱的 …  我们很荣幸邀请你参加我们的年度销售会议。 会 议将于 12 月 12 日至 15 日在广州白天鹅宾馆举行。随信 附寄会议详情、住宿安排及一张临时计划表。  去年我们聆听了你的 “ 关于顾客对品牌的忠诚 ” 的精 彩演讲，这次如能出席并介绍有关主题的最新动态， 将不胜感激。联系电话： 62132512.  真诚的，

16. Dear… Many thanks for you letter and enclosure of April 1, 2009. We were very interested to hear that you are looking for an UK distributor for your teaching aids. We would like to invite you to visit our booth, No.6 at London Toy Fair at Earl’s building, which starts on May 2. If you would like to set up an appointment during non-exhibit hall hours please call me. I can then arrange for our senior staff to be present at the meeting. We look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely yours,

17. Self-check Dec. 13th, 2005 Dear Manager of Personnel Department, On behalf of our group company, “I feel deeply honored to invite you to attend the workshop on personnel administration. The main purpose of the workshop is to discussion Dingyi, the famous expert of Administrative College of Binhai University, to be our keynote speaker, Venue: Friendship Hotel, Binhai Please inform us whether or not you could attend the workshop. And if you want take part in the workshop. Please mail the outline of your lecture to Human Resources Department of Oriental Group Company before Dec. 20th. I’m looking forward to your reply! Your sincerely, Zhang Jianguo Manager, Resources Department, Oriental Group Co.