How do you write addresses?

Great tip! Thanks so much @Angelthecat.

Is that a real name and a real address?
Or only a fake address?

What do you mean Bille?
Oh I get you, I’m still a bit confused with all the nee things here :sweat_smile:

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As a Chinese, I can tell you that the arrival time will not vary greatly.
Indeed, every place (city) in China will have special translators to translate postcards sent from abroad and write Chinese addresses on postcards to facilitate postmen to deliver letters.
Of course, we would be very happy if we could see you write our address in Chinese.

Wish you a happy postcrossing

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One time I received an address for someone in China that was so ridiculously long. I always keep a few large postcards on hand and I had to use one of them just to accommodate the size and length of this address. I don’t have the ability to print addresses but there was another one that I received in which I had my mom print it out for me so I can paste it to the postcard. I’ve learned that some of the Russian addresses can get by with wrapping some of the numbers around to the next line below. Other than those two countries I can’t think of any others that tend to be really long and difficult.

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About the length of the lines in Chinese addresses: There is a post where somebody explains where good spots to break up the line are:

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I usually write Russian addresses in Russian script.
On some days it only takes 9 days (from Austria to Russia), on other days up to 14 days. (which I think is great)

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for deliverers, write address in local languages can help them delivery faster. In China, the letter center will write the Chinese meaning if addresses is in English.
If you would like to send a postcard to China and use address in Chinese and you don’t know Chinese, I suggest you use a printer, or this will make things worse.

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My experience with Korean, it sent almost 15 days faster than when I wrote the address in Latin alphabet (I sent 2 to Korea so far : Latin address took more than 30 days, and the Korean address took less time to arrive).

With Japanese addresses, I never sent in Japanese scripts as the cards so far arrived less than 3 weeks (some even arrived just in a week).

I got one address to Mainland China, took like 40 days but apparently the postcrossing team “accepted” the card because the user changed address. And if it’s to Hong Kong I always use English lol (with assumption they know English there better than in Mainland), and the results were vary.

But I think if you draw a non Latin alphabet address, it’s always better to put effort to write it down carefully. The receiver will be soo happy about the effort of writing in their native language. (I use pencil first to write the address and then use the pen later :joy:)

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What will make things worse?
The English address or non printed hand written Chinese?

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That is my experience as well, postcards to Japan are usually fast anyway. Most Japanese postcrossers don’t even add their address in Japanese, at least the ones whose addresses I’ve drawn. For Taiwan and Russia it doesn’t make a difference either - again, in my personal experience. I still always write Russian addresses in Cyrillic, simply because I enjoy doing it, not because I believe it makes the cards arrive faster.

The only country where I actually believe it makes a difference is China. I have tried handwriting Chinese characters, but this is not my strong suit and it stresses me out way more than necessary, so I simply print.

But I never add the English address if I already have the one in the local script - I only write the country’s name in English. I have been sending cards this way successfully for 15 years.

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Wow thank you very much for sharing all your experiences with me, it helps me a lot.
It’s awesome to read how each one of you handles it and I’m sure with time I’ll try one thing or another :sweat_smile:

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The hand written Chinese . You may write the wrong chinese letter if you don’t know chinese

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If there’s a mistake in one character, I guess the postal worker might be able to figure out where the postcard is to be delivered anyway?!

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Can it become so wrong? I mean I can make mistake in any address, and I get cards where people have written something wrong, or something is even missing.

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If the address is provided in non-Roman characters on the website, I highlight them and copy/paste into Word or whatever you might use. Then I type the Roman address underneath it as well. Then I print it out and glue it onto the postcard.

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@rothko there’s no need for another address if you can print the address in receiver’s language, as long as there’s the country name in the last line.

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I don’t like printed addresses or messages, I prefer them by hand! So I handwrite them. Wishing I could write Chinese… but a mistake would be a disaster, so I do Latin letters.

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Perhaps, but my confidence in the US postal system has waned over the last couple years and I’m honestly not sure they’d know what to do with a card that only had the country name on it with nothing else they could read…

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@rothko Do they need to know the city too? Sure I don’t know how your postal system works, maybe they deliver mail straight to certain foreign cities. Here in Finland they only need to know the country.

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