My address

I am Chinese, do I need to translate my address in English or directly in Chinese?

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Hello, @Kun_! :wave: You can provide your address both in Chinese characters and in English; I recommend providing both (perhaps another Postcrosser can clarify the exact steps to do this on your profile, or assist with the translation).

If you believe that postcards will arrive to you faster if the address is written in Chinese, you may wish to recommend in your profile that Postcrossers use that one instead! (Many people can print out the address and attach it to cards.)

I hope that helps you; I wish you the best of luck and a warm welcome! :blush:

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The best option: provide both.:slightly_smiling_face:

I usually print addresses in non-latin alphabets (the mail is coming faster this way), but there are people who prefer to write them down in Latin alphabet.

Recently I was sending a postcard to China, addresse has only Latin version of her address and now I’m a bit worried that it may reach her after longer time. It already takes a lot of time when you are sending mail to China from Europe.

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Please provide English address, Chinese diagrams cannot be drawn by everyone

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@holeanta
I think sometimes it matters but sometimes not!
When you are sending cards to a huge cities in China,English version and Chinese version addresses have no differences on delivery speed.But if you are sending to some non-prosperous cities in China,Chinese version addresses make sense.:grinning:
To me,it doesn’t matter,last 2 weeks I received a Swedish card mailed from Sweden,the address is written in English,it arrived me in around 15 days as I am in a enormous city😊

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There’s always option of printing…

But not everyone has a printer home (I hadn’t for many years).:wink:

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I cann’t print the address and never had problems sending cards to China.

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Please provide both. I always print it out and put both addresses on the postcard.

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Another vote for providing both.

My impression: the likelihood of cards getting lost, written in Latin letters, sent to non-Latin writing countries, is much higher than cards with adresses in national writings printed out. So I always print out the adress if there is an adress in Chinese / Russian / whatever letters.

Some people, however, do not have the possibility of printing. Having no printer, being on travel, etc. E.G. when traveling I always handwrite such adresses in Latin letters (but I do not like doing this). As mentioned, many of them last very much longer or even expire and get lost.

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Another vote for BOTH !

I can’t print, so having the address only in Chinese would be a problem.

I haven’t experienced any problem with mail to China (ok, the odd ghostcrosser, but that’s a global phenomena).

I can write Cyrillic (Russian). I haven’t notice any card travelling faster when I use it…

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Is it possible to have the address only in for example Chinese characters?
I thought the use of Latin letters was obligatory.

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The country has to be written in Latin Letters.
So the postal service in sender’s country can send it to receiver’s country.
Once in the country of destination, the country’s writing may be even better, for every system and every postman should be able the country’s usual writing - not necessarily the latin one.

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Yes, in the card. I always write the address in Chinese or Russian, if it’s given, and then only write the country name also in Latin alphabet.

But I meant in the profile, is it allowed to have the address there not in Latin letters at all.
I thought this is what the original poster asked.
Why I remember this was discussed before, but I might confuse with some other topic.
How difficult it might be for, for example a German person, to only get the address in Chinese, if they don’t have a printer or can’t write the Chinese characters.
Since the profile should be in English, I thought address should be also, of course i understand I don’t translate the word in my address to English, but to use the letters that are used in English, Latin alphabet.

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I think you’re right, but I’m not a Postcrossing expert of course. The address has to be checked and released by the team manually anyway, so I guess they would get in contact with the user then.

I suppose, English is the common postcrossing language.
So the adress in the profile should always be in English (=Latin) letters in the profile - every postcrosser should be able to read and write.
Additionally it can be very useful to add the adress in national writing as well.

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UPU rules require addresses to be in Latin characters entirely.
Of course you can add the translation as well, but the minimum requirement is for the address to be entirely Romanized. This has been in effect for years.

Does this mean that I should put both addresses on when Postcrossing supplies one in an alternative script?
I normally print and paste on the non-Roman and only write the country in Roman since that is what my country’s sorting office will use.

If the question is about English or Chinese letters, then it’s supposed to be in English letters, and address in Chinese writing if you want (recommended if your local postal workers don’t read English well, so some postcrossers can print).

If it’s about whether you need to translate Chinese word for 'street’s, for example, to English - then can be both, as long as your local post workers can read it. For example, both ‘st.’, ‘street’, and ‘ul.’, ‘ulitsa’ (Russian word for street) works for Russian addresses

To be safe I would use both, in full. If my printer broke I would go by the UPU rules and use the Romanized version. My Chinese or Russian would probably make things worse!

But if Royal Mail only needs the country name, then you’re probably fine doing it the way you always have. Here in the USA, they are enforcing the UPU rules so I don’t have a choice.

I am doing fine with just the county name in Latin alphabet. The rest of the address, if available, gets written (in Cyrillic) or printed and pasted (in Mandarin) and the cards are on their way. No problem with delivery.

The Latin version of the address must be available for the users who have no possibility of printing it.