Letter closings

[Joël]

Are there any other  terms for closing an informal letter besides 'cordialement' and 'amicalement' ?

[Neil Coffey]

I'm actually not so sure about using "cordialement" for an informal letter-- it has more connotations with a semi-formal business letter/e-mail than with, say, a letter/e-mail between friends.

 

As well as "amicalement", you could use "amitiés", "sincères amitiés", for a closer friendship "gros bisous", ""je t'embrasse". Surely others will have more suggestions too.

[Joël]

Thanks.

[stu harris]

Neil, have the very formal sign-offs (Veuillez croire, cher Monsieur, à l'expression de mes sentiments les plus distinguées) gone out of fashion now? I hope so, they always struck me as pretty silly.

[Erwan]

In a very formal way, you can also say Je vous prie d'agréer Madame,Monsieur, l'expression de mes sentiments distingués/de mes respectueuses salutations.

 

This kind of sentence is not really out of fashion but are used for specific situations : covering letter, mail to the administration services,...

[Neil Coffey]

They've gone out of fashion in the sense that they're practically never used in e-mails, and a good percentage of commercial correspondence takes place via e-mail.

 

But as Erwan says, my observation would be that they're still generally used in those instances of formal correspondence still sent by hard copy.