Register: the same sentence, three ways

Person. 你 (nǐ, you) is the everyday you; 您 (nín, you, polite) is the respectful one. To a colleague you sit next to, 您 (nín, you, polite) sounds distant. To a partner's manager in a first message, 你 (nǐ, you) sounds too familiar. Both are correct Chinese; the channel and the person decide.

Question form. Adding 吗 (ma, question particle) to the end of a statement is the spoken way to ask. Formal writing embeds the question instead, with 是否 (shìfǒu, whether, formal) in front of the verb: "please confirm whether your company is able to come", not "can your company come?". WeChat sits in between, and a 吗 (ma, question particle) question there is still normal.

Company. 你们公司 (nǐmen gōngsī, your company, casual) is plain "your company". 贵公司 (guì gōngsī, your company, polite) and the shorter 贵司 (guì sī, your company, polite) use 贵 (guì, literally expensive, here honoured) as a mark of respect, and 我司 (wǒ sī, our company, formal) is the matching way to name your own side. These polite forms are standard dictionary usage.

The index numbers on the figure come from the formality checker you will use in the build-along and take apart in session 3: a printed list of 43 markers, run in your browser. They are counts, not a grade.

Pulling all three levers moves the sentence from 34 to 64 on the checker's index, which is inside the WeChat band (42 to 68), not the email band (70 to 92). That is the honest result, and it is useful. A formal email is not one formal sentence: it is that sentence inside a frame, an opening with 尊敬的 (zūnjìng de, dear, respected) and the title, a greeting with 您好 (nín hǎo, hello, polite), and the stock phrases of a formal close such as 请查收 (qǐng cháshōu, please find attached) and 如有疑问 (rú yǒu yíwèn, if you have any questions). The build-along adds that frame and the index rises to 79. Session 2 is entirely about it.

A note on the pinyin in these lists: 一下 (yíxià, a little, briefly) is written here with the tone you say, yí before a fourth tone. Standard pinyin (GB/T 16159-2012) writes the original tone, yīxià, and allows the changed tone to be written in teaching, which is what these pages do.

These are everyday dictionary-level distinctions, not rules from a style guide, and native writers move between them freely. The pairs are also the swaps the formality checker suggests when a draft is too casual for its channel, so the build-along will show you the same list from the other side.

书面语 (shūmiànyǔ, written language) describes where a word comes from, not how stiff it is. A polite WeChat to Manager Wang can happily use 稍后 (shāohòu, later, formal) and 尽快 (jǐnkuài, as soon as possible) while still asking a 吗 (ma, question particle) question, and it is better for the mix. A formal email uses the written forms almost throughout. A chat with your own colleague uses almost none of them, and a colleague who receives 烦请 (fánqǐng, may I trouble you to) from the next desk will wonder what has gone wrong.

The practical habit is to write a draft the way it comes, then read it once for the left-hand column above and decide, word by word, whether the channel wants the swap.

Session 3's bench writes one meeting confirmation five ways and counts each. The version that polishes everything into classical phrasing, with 兹 (zī, hereby, classical), 承蒙 (chéngméng, indebted to, classical), 敝司 (bì sī, our humble company, classical) and 顺颂商祺 (shùn sòng shāng qí, wishing your business well, classical), reaches index 100. It scores 76 as a formal email, because the email band stops at 92, and 4 on WeChat. The plain formal email, at index 82, scores 100.

The lesson is not that the classical words are wrong. It is that politeness in a business message is fit: the reader feels addressed the way the channel and their role lead them to expect. Past the ceiling, extra formality stops signalling respect and starts signalling distance.

Classical forms still appear in printed invitations, formal notices and ceremonial letters, and a reader of business Chinese should recognise them: 敝司 (bì sī, our humble company, classical) for your own firm, 鄙人 (bǐrén, this humble person, classical) for yourself, 兹 (zī, hereby, classical) to open an announcement. For a signing-ceremony invitation printed on card, that register can be the right one. For email and WeChat, which is where nearly all of your writing will go, the plain written forms of Part 2 are the target. This is common professional practice rather than a published rule, and the checker's bands are built to model it.