How can I write this address in Chinese?

September 1, 2005 10:31 AM

How can I write this address in Chinese?

I'd like to send a package to this address in China. As I understand it, there are different dialects and so on, but I'd like to write this address in the one most likely to be understood at the destination:

Shanghai Jiaoda Nanyang Middle School
No. 1915 Tingfeng Road, Songyin town
Jinshan District, Shanghai 201504

Will simply transcribing or printing the characters be sufficient, or do I need to learn more about the written equivalents? I will be including the address in english as well, I'd just like to make it as easy as possible to deliver. That, and it will be a fun little exercise. Thanks!

posted by odinsdream to writing & language (22 comments total)

The dialects may be different, but the characters will be the same.

Cantonese, Mandarin, etc. use the same symbols though they may pronounce the word associated with the symbol differently.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:35 AM on September 1, 2005

I have sent things to China quite a few times and you can use our characters to type out the address. If you can communicate with the people you are sending to, just email them and ask them exactly what to put on the package in order to get it delivered. If you can't, I would go to FedEx or UPS to ship it. They will get your package where it needs to go.

And put the Country as "PRC".
posted by aburd at 11:36 AM on September 1, 2005

The person I'm sending it to only arrived in the country a few days ago, and speaks very little of the language.

Consider my question academic, if that makes it easier to answer. I'm sure UPS or FedEx would be able to handle it, but, I'm still interested in learning how to write the address.
posted by odinsdream at 11:45 AM on September 1, 2005

When I was in China, the mail I received was addressed in only English, and it got to me just fine.
posted by elisabeth r at 11:49 AM on September 1, 2005

As always, Frank's Compulsive Guide to Postal Addresses has the scoop. Notably, "PRC" is not a recognized name of the country in the USPS IMM. I assume you are in the U.S.—you didn't specify.
posted by grouse at 12:25 PM on September 1, 2005

Sorry, yes, I am in the United States.
posted by odinsdream at 1:19 PM on September 1, 2005

上海交大南洋中学
一九一五号听风路
金山区域，上海二零一五零四

I didnt know the characters for songyin town, so as you can see in the second line its omitted. You should probably get this doubled checked if you want your mail to get there :-p. Also I just wrote the chinese characters in the same order as english, so its not "major to minor" as frank says it should be when it's in chinese characters.
posted by EvilKenji at 1:32 PM on September 1, 2005

The pingyin system of transliteration is very exact. The mappings of character combinations to all the possible sounds is defined precisely. So if your address was obtained from a reliable source rather than being a rough guess, then no mistakes will be made on the part of the recipient. Don't worry, be happy.
posted by randomstriker at 2:58 PM on September 1, 2005

Thanks EvilKenji! Would anyone be able to fill in Songyin Town?
posted by odinsdream at 3:30 PM on September 1, 2005

上海交大南洋中学
上海市金山区 松隐镇亭枫公路1915号
（邮编：201504）

I found their address via google cache with their school name. Numbers are still numbers. :)
posted by of strange foe at 4:11 PM on September 1, 2005

grouse, when my wife writes to her mom in Beijing, she appends "PRC" on the end of the address. USPS seems to have no problem recognizing it, and the rest of the address is in Chinese. So I'd say aburd is right.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:49 PM on September 1, 2005

hah, well that was a rather simple idea, of strange foe. I'm slightly embarrassed that I didn't think of it. Thanks.
posted by odinsdream at 5:31 PM on September 1, 2005

Do not try to hand-write the address if you want it to be understood. Characters are written in a particular way, with the strokes in a particular order, and unless you've learned how to write them what you produce will be at best ugly (and Chinese hate ugly writing) and quite likely unintelligible. Print the address out.
posted by languagehat at 5:42 PM on September 1, 2005

of strange foe has it pegged exactly.

Don't use EvilKenji's above, which involves guessing (incorrectly) some of the characters. You'd never find a Chinese street called 听风路 ("Listen-To-The-Wind Road") except maybe in a cute translation of "Wind in the Willows". This is a good reminder not to guess at characters, especially for place names, especially when giving out addresses. Also, as of strage foe says, you'd never find a zip code written out it characters, it'd always be in arabic numerals.

EvilKenji, go to your room and write 松隐镇亭枫公路 50 times.
posted by mono blanco at 7:56 PM on September 1, 2005

Oh, and odinsdream, you can address the letter in Romanization exactly as you have it written above, perhaps adding PRC or "People's Republic of China" as per Kirth Gerson. The Chinese post office uses the standard pinyin Romanization for Chinese addresses regardless of the local dialect. What you have there is standard pinyin (i.e., the Mandarin pronunciation) for the name of the school, road and town. Esp with the zip code, no problem.
posted by mono blanco at 8:01 PM on September 1, 2005

Kirth Gerson: the USPS will deliver to all sorts of addresses that are not standardized. "PRC" is not. If you sent something to "IVORY COAST" I'm sure it would get there despite the official IMM name being "CÔTE D'IVOIRE."
posted by grouse at 1:57 AM on September 2, 2005

grouse - what is your point? Are you saying that using PRC will impede delivery? Obviously, it won't.

Since in neither of your posts do you bother to say what the Official USPS Standard Designation for Mainland China is, I guess it doesn't matter. Or maybe that would have been too helpful.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:13 AM on September 2, 2005

languagehat, when you say "in a particular order" how does that apply to, say, tracing the stuff with a fine-point pen?
posted by odinsdream at 9:07 AM on September 2, 2005

Chinese people do not write characters the way they are printed, any more than we do letters. If you trace characters with a pen, they will look more or less like capital letters carefully printed by someone who doesn't know the alphabet. They will be recognizable, if you do a good job of tracing, but will not look good.

This page gives a nice review of the historical development of characters; compare the "standard script" and "running script" (6th and 7th from the top) to see the difference between printed-style and written-style characters.
posted by languagehat at 9:30 AM on September 2, 2005

I understand. If I were writing a personal letter, I would never attempt to trace the characters, but considering that this is an address which, in english I'd write in big capital child-like letters anyway, I figure it would be okay to do the same. Please correct me if I'm wrong, and doing so would literally make the result illegible.
posted by odinsdream at 11:07 AM on September 2, 2005

Oh, I'm sure it would be legible, and I don't mean to overstate things. If you'll get pleasure out of writing/tracing it yourself, by all means go ahead. Especially if you're adding the pinyin transcription for backup, it doesn't make much difference. I just wanted to make the point that it's not as easy to copy characters as a lot of people seem to think. Carry on!
posted by languagehat at 12:37 PM on September 2, 2005

Thanks everyone!
posted by odinsdream at 1:15 PM on September 2, 2005