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Recently I’ve had two students ask me the meaning of “as for” when they were writing business emails, so that’s what I’ll write about today.

We use this expression in a situation in which a person is asking about or talking about more than one thing or person. When we are responding to their inquiry or statement, we use “as for” to talk about the second thing or person. For example:

Thank you for your inquiry about where you can buy our new product and how much it costs. Regarding the location where it can be bought, you can buy it at our store in Upton. As for the price, it costs $125.

A: What are we going to do about the report and the presentation?

B: Well, we can write the report this weekend. As for the presentation, we’ll have to ask Julia to do it for us.

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A: We need to buy some milk and bread.

B: I can buy some milk at the supermarket after work. As for bread, I think we have some in the freezer.

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A: What do you think about the two candidates for president?

B: I don’t like either of them. Ken Peterson doesn’t seem very honest, and as for Tim Young, he’s just too inexperienced to be a good president.

So, we can use “as for” both in writing, as in the first example, or in conversation, as in the last three examples. In formal writing, we often use “regarding” to talk about the first thing and then we use “as for” for the second thing. We only use “regarding” in very formal situations such as writing an important email or letter.