邀请信  

Letters of Invitation

 

  邀请函是邀请客人出席仪式隆重的重要庆典、会议及一些喜庆活动时发送的信函文书，在日常生活和外事活动中使用广泛。一般有两种：一种为正规的格式 （formal correspondence)，亦称请帖或请柬 （invitation card）；另一种是非正式格式 （informal correspondence)，即一般的邀请信。请柬一般设计精美，内容简约；而邀请信则设计简约，内容详细。

  式邀请格式考究，往往用第三人称写。常使用印制好的请柬，只需填上被邀者姓名、日期、地点等内容。格式一般为：邀请人—邀请—被邀请人—参加事项—目的—地点—时间（星期—日期—钟点）。时间除了使用年、月、日及钟点外，还应注明星期几。时间一般不用阿拉伯数字写。请柬通常应提前一二周甚至三周发出。写请柬的日期一般不写在请柬上。若邀请人希望被邀请者能及时答复或对被邀请者应邀时的服装有所要求时，可在请柬的左下角或右下角加以注明。

   非正式邀请一般采用信函格式，甚至便条格式即可。

   邀请信的特点是简短热情，形式较为灵活，一般为两小段，将意思表达清楚即可。但一定要将邀请的时间（年、月、日、钟点）、地点、场合写清楚，不能让收信人有任何的疑虑。邀请信一般都由以下几个部分组成：

    1. 说明邀请内容；

    2. 邀请理由；

    3. 有关邀请的细节：时间、日期、地点、邀请哪些人等；

    4. 请求在某天回复是否参加。

  对于邀请信，在复信时应该明确地说明是接受邀请, 还是不能接受邀请。不能使用模棱两可的话。接受邀请时，在回信时要重复写上邀请信中的某些内容，如：几月几日、星期几、几点钟等等。如果不接受对方的邀请，则应该首先感谢对方的邀请，并对不能赴约表示道歉，然后具体说明无法接受邀请的原因，最后表达问候或者祝愿活动顺利进行。

A. 邀请信的常用句型：

1. It is my pleasure/a great honor for me to invite you

    as an expert to our university.

2. I am most pleased, on behalf of the organizing

    committee, to invite you to attend the meeting.

3. The reception will be held in Room 201, Beach Hotel

    on July 8.

4. My family and I would feel honored if you could come.

5. We are looking forward to your visit with great pleasure./

    We are looking forward to seeing you with great pleasure.

6. Please confirm your participation at your earliest

    convenience.

7. If you cannot come, please notify me before Friday.

Letters of Invitation

B. 回复邀请信的常用句型：

1. Thank you very much for your kindness in asking us to

    attend your wedding ceremony.

2. Thanks for your invitation. It will be a great pleasure for

    me to join you on Friday for the wonderful film. I will

    arrive at the cinema before eight.

3. Thank you very much for your kind invitation, but I’m very

    sorry I really can’t come because I have…

4. We are so sorry that we cannot accept your kind invitation for

    Thursday because of another engagement.

5. Much to my regret, I shall not be able to honor the invitation

    because I have been suffering from illness since this summer.

Letters of Invitation

Sample One

                                                                August 15, 2012

Dear Professor Wang,

       On behalf of the Ohio State University, I would be very pleased to invite you to                attend and chair the 2012 International Conference on Data Processing to be held in                Michigan, from October 25 to October 28, 2012.

       You are an internationally acclaimed scholar and educator. Your participation will be        among the highlights of the conference.

      We sincerely hope that you can accept our invitation. As you know, this is the 10th           anniversary of the conference and we plan to make it a truly international meeting. We           have accepted many papers from several foreign countries, including two from China.

       If you can come, please let us know as soon as possible, since we have to prepare           the final program soon. We are looking forward to your acceptance.

                                                                         Sincerely yours,

                                                                                 Peter White

Sample Two

                                                                     December 24, 2012

Dear Lily,

        We are planning a tea party to celebrate Professor Zhang Lin’s fiftieth anniversary          of  his teaching. I’m writing to invite you to come. It’s on Friday, December 28, at 2:00          p.m., in the meeting room of our college.

        It is a long time since we have had the pleasure of seeing you, and we do hope that           you can make it. Don’t disappoint us.

                                                                                     Yours,

                                                                                    Wang Gang

Letter of Reply   

Sample

Dear Professor White,

        Many thanks for your letter dated 15th August, inviting me to attend and chair the         2012 International Conference on Data Processing to be held in Michigan, from October         25 to 28, 2012.

       Much to my regret, I shall not be able to honor the invitation because I have been            suffering from illness since this summer. I am firmly advised that it would be unwise to          undertake any long distant travel in the near future.

        I feel very sad to miss the opportunity of meeting you and many others in the field          of Computer Science. I wish the conference a complete success.

                                                                           Yours sincerely,

                                                                               Wang Qiang