中国人特喜欢用kindly,喜欢到就连「温馨提示」也要说成kindly reminder。
先来吐槽一下这个kindly reminder,完全就是错的用法,因为kindly是副词啊,你至少要说kind reminder才对吧。
与此类似的还有kindly regards,kindly advice,也是无力吐槽。
当然也有贱人不服气,翻出字典来找出kindly也是形容词的证据。那又如何,你也得看绝大多数情况下人们当不当它是形容词吧。我也可以翻字典找出here是名词的证据,难道就可以生搬硬套说Here is beautiful(这里很漂亮)这种奇怪的句子吗?
话说回来,就算是改成kind reminder,其实也不常见,老外常用的是 friendly reminder或者gentle reminder,比如:
Just a friendly/gentle reminder- the conference call is at 2pm today. Please join on time.
其次,除了钟爱kindly reminder外,中国人的英文邮件里也充斥着无数kindly,本意是想要soften语气,不要那么生硬。
如:
- please kindly give your feedback.
- If you have any question, please kindly contact us.
- Please kindly read the information below.
- Please kindly understand….
- Please kindly approve it.
- Could you please kindly speed up the process? It's very urgent.
你要问我是用kindly好不好,我只会告诉你,kindly你妹。
你有一百种soften语气的方法,为什么偏偏就要用kindly。
我觉得极有可能是受到上个世纪外贸函电书籍的影响,老菜鸟传给新菜鸟,一代影响一代,遗毒至今。怎么说呢,还是一百多年前书信时代那种矫揉造作、虚情假意的表达,非常old fashioned了,像是七八十岁老太太说话的感觉。
特别是用了please还要用kindly的,简直是戏精了,你是在跪求吗?
在英国你可能还会看到部分老头老太太用kindly,没办法,英国佬的做作。
说实话,还真没见过美国人的邮件里有写kindly的,今天还特意在在outlook里搜了一下关键词kindly,果然全是中国人的邮件。
总之,在现代商务英语邮件里,kindly不推荐使用了。
怎么改呢?
你完全可以不要kindly,就用一个please就好了。
如果你觉得有时候单用please还是很生硬,那就按照我这篇文章的方法来改。
这样使用please太凶了…
有些情况还是不好改,你还可以把句子增加一点话,或者换一种说法就没那么生硬了,如:
- Please kindly give your feedback -> We look forward to your feedback.
- If you have any question, please kindly contact us -> If you have any question, please let me know.
- Please kindly read the information below.-> Please read the information below and let me know if you have any question.
- Please kindly understand … ->I hope you could understand …
- Please kindly approve it.-> Could you please help approve it when you have time?
- Could you please kindly speed up the process? It's very urgent.-> I was wondering, could you please help speed up the process? It's very urgent.