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I'd like to write an email to someone I haven't yet met and I'd like to introduce the subject of the email in a formal manner.
In English, I might say:
I'm writing to you regarding your research...
I don't have a good sense of how best to translate this. Perhaps something along the lines of this?
Le escribo en cuanto se refiere a sus investigaciones sobre...
Would the above translation work, or are there better options?
Una fórmula que puedes usar es el de con respecto. Por ejemplo
Quiero hacer unas aclaraciones con respecto de sus investigaciones ...
Con respecto de las investigaciones, quiero hacer unas aclaraciones ...
Se puede usar la fórmula acerca de
Quiero hacer unas aclaraciones acerca de sus investigaciones ...
Acerca de sus investigaciones, quiero aclarar ...
También puede usarse con referencia
Quiero hacer unas aclaraciones con referencia a sus investigaciones...
Con referencia a sus investigaciones, quiero aclarar...
Por supuesto aclaracion/aclarar es un ejemplo; se puede usar cualquier otro motivo como el de preguntar, puntualizar, abordar, etc.
First you should specify wich country you will use it, take in mind that all I'm about to say is valid to Spain, but it's not sure for other countries.
There are many ways of writing these type of things. If the principal subject of the email is the research, I'd save useless formalities or introductions, and go straight to the point, for instance:
Recientemente he leído sus investigaciones y he pensado que/estoy de acuerdo con/pienso que...
Even if the principal subject is the research but you still want something like an introduction, maybe you want to speak about something else first for example, there are several well-known "formulas" to begin to speak about a certain subject.
If it's the first thing you are writing in the email:
Le escribo la/el presente para comunicarle/expresarle que...
The "la/el" article isn't THAT important here, since the forumla comes from old letters that was "la carta" and some people still use that femenine article instead of the masculine article that email have in Spanish.
Also comunicarle should be used only for really formal things, even legal things. Speaking about a research you could use it if he/she win an award f.i., but you'd use expresarle or other more appropiate word to express your opinions and such.
Still if the subject is the first thing in the email, but if it's some sort of legal or super formal communication/letter:
Por la presente le comunico que...
Or
Por la presente, y en representación del Consejo de Dirección de la Universidad X, le comunico que...
If the subject isn't the first thing in the email so you want to change the subject, the con respecto formula Krauss told you in his answer is the more formal one, but the others Krauss proposed are still perfectly usable in a formal environment! Maybe you are using the phrase more than once and you don't want to repeat yourself, or some of the formulas are more used in one country and not in the others.
Take in mind that there are some well known, frequently used, formal formulas in Spanish, but there isn't one perfect one you can use always. To be formal is more about how you write the overall letter, than whether you use that or this word in some phrase.
Well, maybe you already know this last thing :) but that's what I was trying to say.
Just to add another option, you can use en relación a. Taking your example:
Le escribo en relación a su investigación...
You can find some examples in the CREA reference corpus of Spanish:
Le escribo en relación a la noticia que publicaron sobre el accidente-asesinato de un terrorista en Bélgica.
Juan Luis Cebrián, "La rusa", 1986 (Spain)
Me permito escribirle en relación a una entrevista al señor Alvaro Bardón aparecida en HOY N.º 114.
Revista Hoy, 28/11-04/12/1979 (Chile)
Nonetheless, according to the RAE the proper expression would be con relación a:
- loc. prepos. En correspondencia con, o conforme a.
- loc. prepos. con respecto a.
Example:
La crítica de arte Vicky Torres escribió con relación a la muestra: [...]
ABC Color, 16/10/2000 : Muestra de pinturas de Eneide Boneu se inaugura el miércoles (Paraguay).
As you can see from the examples, the expression is quite neutral as it is used both in the European Spanish and in the American Spanish.
