Formal Chinese Messages: Email, LINE & 請假 Templates

Your Dangdai textbook teaches you to introduce yourself, order food, and ask for directions. It does not teach you how to tell your teacher you are sick, message your 房東 (landlord) about a broken water heater, or write to the immigration office about your ARC. These situations arrive in your first month in Taiwan, usually before you feel ready for them.

The gap is not vocabulary. It is register — the difference between how you speak to a classmate and how you write to someone you owe politeness to. Get the register wrong and a message that meant to say “please help me” reads as either presumptuous or oddly cold. This guide covers the actual mechanics: structure, address terms, and templates for the three situations every language student in Taiwan eventually faces.

Three Registers, Not Two

Most learners think in a binary: formal versus casual. Taiwan runs on three registers, and knowing which one applies matters more than any single phrase.

Register	Where it appears	Example opener
Formal written	Email to a school office, government correspondence, a letter to a professor	敬啟者 / 老師好，冒昧來信
Polite LINE	Messages to your teacher, landlord, doctor’s office, or anyone older or in authority	老師好，不好意思打擾您
Casual texting	Friends, classmates, people your own age you already know well	欸在幹嘛 / 484 在唬爛

That third register — the one full of 注音文 and internet shorthand — is covered in Taiwanese Internet Slang. This guide is about the other two, which overlap more than learners expect. In Taiwan, LINE has mostly replaced email for day-to-day contact with landlords and even some teachers, but the register of a LINE message to your 房東 is closer to a formal letter than to a text between friends. The medium changed; the politeness rules did not.

The Shape of a Formal Message

Every formal Chinese message — email or LINE — follows the same three-part structure, and skipping a part is what makes a message feel abrupt.

1. Greeting. Name or title, plus a polite opener. 老師好 (to a teacher), 您好 (to anyone whose name you either don’t know or want to address formally), or a name plus title: 陳老師，您好.

2. Body. State the reason plainly, but soften the request. Chinese formal writing favours indirect phrasing over direct commands — 麻煩您 (sorry to trouble you), 想請問 (I’d like to ask), and 是否方便 (would it be convenient) do the work that “please” and “could you” do in English, but they appear more often and further softened. These patterns show up in Dangdai dialogues as early as Book 2, usually in passing — worth drilling deliberately with an SRS tool like Zhong Chinese rather than waiting to need them mid-crisis.

3. Closing. A short closing line plus your name. Emails to institutions often end with 此致敬禮 (a formal sign-off equivalent to “best regards, formally”) followed by your name and, if relevant, your student ID or class. LINE messages usually just end with 謝謝 and your name if the recipient might not have you saved by your Chinese name.

Drop the greeting or the closing and the message still parses grammatically — but it reads as terse, even rude, in a culture where the framing around a request matters as much as the request itself.

Getting the Address Right

The single most consequential choice in a formal message is 您 versus 你. 您 is the polite second-person pronoun; it costs nothing to use and its absence is noticed immediately by anyone above you in age or authority. Default to 您 for teachers, landlords, doctors, government staff, and anyone you have not been given explicit permission to call 你.

Titles follow a strict order: surname first, then role. 王老師 (Teacher Wang), 李醫生 (Doctor Li), 陳先生 / 陳小姐 (Mr. / Ms. Chen) for someone without a professional title, such as most landlords. If you don’t know the surname — common with landlords contacted through a rental agent — 房東您好 works as a safe generic opener.

One Taiwan-specific note: 服務員, the standard term for waitstaff on the Mainland, is not how you address anyone in a written message here, formal or otherwise. Stick to titles or 您好 with no title.

Template: Requesting 請假 from Class

請假 shows up early, usually within the first few weeks, whether for a cold, a visa appointment, or a family emergency. MTC, TLI, and most other schools expect written notice before class, not a verbal excuse after.

老師好，不好意思，我今天身體不舒服，需要請假一天，明天會補交作業。謝謝老師！

(Teacher, sorry — I’m not feeling well today and need to take a day off. I’ll submit the homework tomorrow. Thank you!)

The pattern generalises: state 請假 plus the duration, give a one-line reason, and offer a concrete next step (making up the work, providing a doctor’s note if the absence is longer). Schools rarely need a detailed explanation — a plausible reason and a clear timeline are what they’re checking for. For longer absences tied to visa logistics — see Taiwan Student ARC Guide for what documentation an immigration appointment might require — mention the reason category (簽證, ARC, 健保) rather than the full story.

Template: Messaging Your Landlord

Most landlord communication in Taiwan now happens over LINE rather than email, but the register stays formal, especially early in a tenancy before trust is established.

房東您好，不好意思打擾您，我房間的熱水器好像壞了，洗澡沒有熱水。想請問方便請人來看一下嗎？謝謝！

(Landlord, sorry to bother you — my room’s water heater seems broken, no hot water for showering. Would it be possible to have someone come take a look? Thank you!)

Note the structure: apology for the interruption (不好意思打擾您), the problem stated factually (好像壞了, “seems broken” — softer than 壞了 alone), and the request framed as a question (方便…嗎) rather than a demand. This holds for any maintenance issue — a broken lock, a leaking pipe, a question about the monthly 網路 bill. For the broader context of what to expect from a Taipei rental, see Where to Live in Taipei as a Language Student.

Template: Emailing a School Office or Government Contact

Institutional email — a school’s international office, the National Immigration Agency, or an NHI enrollment question — calls for the most formal register, because there is no ongoing relationship to soften the exchange.

您好，我是OO大學語言中心的學生，學號是OO。想請問關於健保加保的相關手續，麻煩您撥冗回覆，謝謝您！

(Hello, I’m a student at [university]‘s language center, student ID [xxx]. I’d like to ask about the health insurance enrollment procedure. Thank you for taking the time to reply.)

Identify yourself and your affiliation in the first line — institutions handling volume email need this before they can act on anything else. See Health Insurance for Language Students for what the 健保 enrollment process actually involves once you get a reply.

Template: Business Email to a Client or Colleague

A business email in Taiwan follows the same three parts as the other messages (greeting, body, closing), with a subject line, a clear request and a polite close. The example below is for a client or a colleague in another department. Adjust the formality for your own relationship and company, since practice varies.

Subject line (主旨, zhǔzhǐ). State the topic: 關於 ○○ 專案報價的確認 (Guānyú ○○ zhuān’àn bàojià de quèrèn, “Confirming the quotation for the ○○ project”).

王經理，您好：

我是 ○○ 公司的 ○○。感謝您上週撥冗與我們開會。

想跟您確認報價單上的交貨日期。麻煩您看一下附件，如果有需要調整的地方，再麻煩您告知。若方便的話，希望能在本週五前收到您的回覆。

如有任何問題，歡迎隨時與我聯絡。謝謝您。

敬祝 商祺

○○ 敬上

(Manager Wang, hello. I am ○○ from ○○ company. Thank you for taking the time to meet us last week. I would like to confirm the delivery date on the quotation. Could you take a look at the attachment, and let me know if anything needs adjusting. If it is convenient, I hope to receive your reply by this Friday. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at any time. Thank you. With best wishes for your business. ○○.)

Parts of the template

Opening. Surname plus title, then 您好 with a full-width colon: 王經理，您好： . If you do not know the title, use 先生 or 小姐 with the surname, or 您好 alone. Titles are covered in Job Titles in Taiwan. Then one line of self-introduction when the reader may not remember you: 我是 ○○ 公司的 ○○.

A thanks line. 感謝您撥冗 (gǎnxiè nín bōrǒng) thanks someone for taking time out of a busy schedule. The MOE dictionary defines 撥冗 as setting aside the fuss of business to find free time. It is a formal phrase and fits clients and senior contacts. Between peers, 謝謝你上次的協助 is enough.

The request. Soften it, as in the other templates. Useful frames:

Frame	Pinyin	Use
麻煩您…	máfan nín	Could I trouble you to…
煩請…	fánqǐng	Formal “kindly” (MOE: a courtesy phrase for troubling someone)
想請問…	xiǎng qǐngwèn	I would like to ask…
不知道是否方便…	bù zhīdào shìfǒu fāngbiàn	I wonder whether it would be convenient…
再請您…	zài qǐng nín	Could I ask you again to…

Attachments. 附件 (fùjiàn) is attachment. Say what it is: 附件為報價單，請查收 (fùjiàn wéi bàojiàdān, qǐng cháshōu, “the attachment is the quotation, please check and receive it”). 查收 is a standard business phrase, and the MOE gives it as “to acknowledge receipt”.

A deadline, softly. Give the date and keep the tone open: 希望能在本週五前收到您的回覆. A bare deadline reads as pressure.

An invitation to follow up. 如有任何問題，歡迎隨時與我聯絡 is a standard line. It closes the body and shows you are available.

Closings

Closing	Pinyin	Where it fits
敬祝 商祺	jìng zhù shāngqí	Traditional closing for business letters and many formal emails. 祺 is a word for wishing well that the MOE dictionary notes is used at the end of letters.
順頌 時祺	shùn sòng shíqí	A more traditional letter closing, often paired with 敬上
謝謝您 / 謝謝	xièxie nín / xièxie	Simple and common, fine for most day-to-day emails
再麻煩您了	zài máfan nín le	When you have just made a request
敬上	jìngshàng	Sign-off after your name, formal

敬祝 商祺 is a fixed phrase. 敬祝 follows the body (or starts a new indented line), 商祺 starts the next line flush left (頂格), and your name goes below, right-aligned. It is more formal than most modern workplace email. Many Taiwanese professionals now close with 謝謝 and a name, or with 敬祝 商祺 for clients and external parties only. Pick the level that matches the other person’s own emails to you. If they close with 商祺, match them.

Between colleagues

Inside a company, drop the self-introduction, the thanks line and the traditional closing:

小林，你好：

麻煩你把上週的會議紀錄寄給我，謝謝。

○○

The shorter form is normal. Titles may still apply for a senior colleague: 林協理，您好。

Email or LINE

For a first contact, a client or an outside party, email is the safer choice. For a colleague you work with every day, LINE is common. The register follows the relationship, as the earlier sections of this guide describe. The business Mandarin guide places these templates in the order of study.

Five Mistakes That Undercut a Formal Message

Using 你 instead of 您 with a teacher or official contact — small on paper, noticeable in practice.

Skipping the apology-for-interruption line (不好意思 / 冒昧來信) before a request — Chinese formal writing expects the ask to be framed as an imposition, even a small one.

Being too direct. “我要…” (I want…) reads as a demand. “想請問是否可以…” (I’d like to ask whether it might be possible to…) is the register a formal message actually needs.

Forgetting the closing. A message that ends right after the request, with no 謝謝 or sign-off, reads as unfinished, not efficient.

Over-formalizing a LINE message to a peer. 敬啟者 in a text to a classmate is its own kind of mistake — it reads as either sarcastic or like you learned Chinese from a 1980s textbook. Match the register to the relationship, not just to the medium.

Not the Same as TOCFL Writing

Formal message conventions overlap with, but are not identical to, what the TOCFL Writing Test evaluates. The exam tests essay structure and argumentation at a fixed length; a landlord message tests whether you can get a repair scheduled without friction. Both draw on the same 敬語 (honorific) vocabulary, but a real message is shorter, more transactional, and forgives a rougher grammar in exchange for the right tone. Learning the templates above will not move your TOCFL score, but it will make your first semester in Taiwan noticeably less stressful.

Related Reading

• Taiwanese Internet Slang: How to Read the Chinese Your Friends Actually Text You — The casual register this guide deliberately excludes, for contrast.
• Taiwan Student ARC Guide — What documentation and timelines look like behind the formal correspondence with immigration.
• Health Insurance for Language Students in Taiwan — The process the email template above is requesting information about.
• How to Prepare for the TOCFL Writing Test — Where formal register is tested formally, as opposed to used in daily life.