Email Vocabulary You Should Know in English

Email is a huge part of our daily lives, so if you’re learning English, it’s important to learn some email vocabulary. You’re sure to put it to good use!

If your job is anything like mine, you’re sending a lot of emails every day. That means that you’ll have many chances to practice this email vocabulary. Why not try walking yourself (going through the steps) through writing an email in English to really solidify (make certain, strong) the vocabulary in your head? Plus, if you want to know how to thank someone in an email, check out our blog about exactly that!

Here’s some email vocabulary in English that you absolutely have to know:

Subject

When you’re writing an email, it’s best to include a subject. The subject is the line that says what the email is about. This is what shows up in someone’s inbox. It’s good to have a subject, so that people immediately (right away) know what the email is about. If I get an email without a subject, I’m also much less likely to answer it. Whether the subject is “meeting rescheduled,” “flight booking details,” or “your daily horoscope,” the subject tells you what’s in the email, and whether you should open it or delete it.

For example:

• Hey, I think you forgot to include a subject in the email. Can you add one before you send it out, please?
• The subject said that I won a prize, but I haven’t entered a competition, so I think it’s spam.

Attachment

Have you ever had to send the “email of shame” where you said you were going to send an attachment, and forgot to actually attach something? Then had to send a second email afterwards. It’s always embarrassing (shameful, awkward) when that happens, but I’m sure it’s happened to everyone!

An attachment in an email is anything extra that you need to send along with the email. This can be a document, a photo, or an invoice. With attachments, you have to do a second step and add it into the email manually (not done automatically), which is why we sometimes forget to add it. We’re only human, after all!

For example:

• I sent the meeting notes as an attachment earlier, but Jack asked me to send them to him again.
• She tried sending the photo as an attachment, but it was too big to send in the email.

Out of office reply

This is perhaps my favorite email vocabulary word, because it means you’re on vacation and not at work! When you send an out of office reply, it’s an automatic email that will let the person who emailed you know that you’re not at work. They’re easy to set up, and usually look like this:

Dear Sender,

I am currently out of office, and will return on Monday, June 8th. I will respond to your email as soon as possible upon my return.

All the best,

Erin Duffin

For example:

• She forgot to set an out of office reply before she went on vacation, but she was only away for a few days, and didn’t get many emails while she was gone.
• I need to talk to Kate about this, but I sent her a meeting invite and got an out of office reply, so it’ll have to wait until she’s back from vacation.

Draft

Sometimes you don’t know exactly what you want to write yet, or want to work on an email more before sending it to a lot of people. This is where a draft comes in handy. A draft is a piece of writing or media that isn’t finished yet. And you can definitely save a draft of an email if you need more time to work on it. This means that you can come back to it, add things, delete things, and make it exactly how you want to be before sending it out. This is a great way to get your thoughts in order before sending something important at work!

For example:

• He was nervous about emailing the whole department for the first time, so saved the email as a draft before going on a short walk to get his thoughts in order.
• Jane exited out of her email, and the email she was writing saved as a draft. She would work on it more tomorrow.

How many of these email vocabulary words do you use at work? Do you use the same words in your native language? Let us know in the comments below!