Unit 56 — Writing a Personal Letter

Writing the Letter

I wrote the date and a greeting at the top.

I apologized for not writing sooner...

...and I wrote about what I'd been doing.

As I wrote, I re-read her last letter to me.

I answered questions she had asked....

...and I asked her about herself.

Then I wrote a closing...

...and signed the letter.

stationery = is paper especially for writing letters. — 专门用来写信的纸。

re-read = when you re-read something, you read it again — not for the first time. — 再读一遍（不是第一次读）。

what I had been doing = means what I did during a period of time before I wrote the letter. — 指写信之前那段时间做过的事。

personal letter = is a letter to a friend or relative; it is written differently from a business letter. — 写给朋友或亲戚的信，写法与商务信函不同。

greeting = in a letter usually starts with "Dear," e.g., "Dear Mom," "Dear Jim," etc. — 信的开头通常以 Dear 开头，如 Dear Mom, Dear Jim 等。

closing = of a letter comes just before your signature. — 信的结尾语，在签名之前。