Comments on: How can I write this address in Chinese?

Question: How can I write this address in Chinese?

odinsdream — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 10:31:53 -0800

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!

By: Pollomacho

Pollomacho — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 10:35:09 -0800

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.

By: aburd

aburd — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 11:36:32 -0800

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".

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 11:45:18 -0800

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.

By: elisabeth r

elisabeth r — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 11:49:18 -0800

When I was in China, the mail I received was addressed in only English, and it got to me just fine.

By: grouse

grouse — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:25:15 -0800

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.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:19:13 -0800

Sorry, yes, I am in the United States.

By: EvilKenji

EvilKenji — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 13:32:53 -0800

w�'W-f
]��,��
�q:� w��

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.

By: randomstriker

randomstriker — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:58:06 -0800

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.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 15:30:54 -0800

Thanks EvilKenji! Would anyone be able to fill in Songyin Town?

By: of strange foe

of strange foe — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:11:40 -0800

w�'W-f
w�q: ~�G��l�1915�
�201504

I found their address via google cache with their school name. Numbers are still numbers. :)

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 16:49:01 -0800

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.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:31:54 -0800

hah, well that was a rather simple idea, of strange foe. I'm slightly embarrassed that I didn't think of it. Thanks.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:42:57 -0800

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.

By: mono blanco

mono blanco — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:56:18 -0800

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 ,�� ("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 ~�G��l� 50 times.

By: mono blanco

mono blanco — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 20:01:52 -0800

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.

By: grouse

grouse — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 01:57:36 -0800

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."

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 05:13:50 -0800

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.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 09:07:15 -0800

languagehat, when you say "in a particular order" how does that apply to, say, tracing the stuff with a fine-point pen?

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 09:30:10 -0800

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.

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 11:07:42 -0800

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.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 12:37:18 -0800

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!

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 13:15:14 -0800

Thanks everyone!