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Post by Chris on Oct 25, 2015 0:43:12 GMT
One additional note: this applies to mail from the US to other countries. With the exception of Canada, mail to a particular foreign country all gets lumped together and sent to one sorting spot in that country. Other countries don't always do it this way, so depending on where you are sending from, it may be important to write the city or postal code in a way your local post office understands as well. Consult your local folks for their preferences. :-)
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juanmi
Crayons
Posts: 17
Looking for Penpals?: Not at this time
Country I live in is: Spain
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Post by juanmi on Oct 25, 2015 6:46:03 GMT
In Spain it is as in many places: Name Street Name number/apartment Town City Zip code Country E.g.
Pepe Pérez Calle de la Macarena Nº 14 2ºB Bornos Cádiz CP 34120 España (Spain)
(this is a fictional address) I write other countries name in english
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Post by sharmon202 on Oct 25, 2015 11:46:45 GMT
I've never understood WHY some folks get so tetchy about being classed as living in the United Kingdom....I often get the impression they've just got a daft chip on their shoulder about something petty and pointless in the grand scheme of things and it's often down to politics I guess which is something I have zero interest in When I used to do a lot of postcrossing I would often write USA on the address instead of United States of America (usually just because of space issues) - is this ok or is it more 'polite' to write the latter rather than 'just' USA? I've often wondered if I'm unwittingly kind-of 'insulting' my American penpals by writing the shorter version I tend to write United States of America in full on envelopes as you have a lot more space than a postcard Speaking for myself, write USA or United States of America, whichever, just so it gets where it is going. I think however you write it, the world knows what it is and where it goes. There may be other countries with "states" but none mistaken for this one, like us or not.
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Post by sharmon202 on Oct 25, 2015 11:49:14 GMT
Think about who processes and sorts the mail for each piece of the address. You generally should address things in such a way as to be most intelligible to that locality. For example, in the US, addresses are written from most specific down to most general, with the last line (for international mail) being the country it's going to. For mail sent from the US, unless the country is CANADA, the US postal service does not read and does not care about anything that appears above it. However, they must be able to parse the country in order to send the mail to its next hop. So, you should write the country name in English (e.g. GERMANY and not DEUTSCHLAND) and in all capital letters without punctuation. You should also use the country names that the USPS recognizes, which does not include UK or UNITED KINGDOM. Although these often work because people know what you mean, the exact country is preferred (ENGLAND, WALES, etc.) and I have sometimes seen mail returned when addressed to "UK". Since the city usually won't be parsed until the letter has arrived in the appropriate country, it makes sense to use the local version of the city name, e.g. "Den Haag" and not "The Hague". Similarly, use street names in the local language (and local script is fine too, if sending to a country whose language doesn't use the Roman alphabet) because the local post office will have to figure out what to do with it. I can't speak to preferences for sending from other countries, but the general idea is that you should use whatever your local postal service prefers to see for the country, since they are the ones who have to get it headed in the right direction. This is very interesting, thanks for the post. Do these super decorated envelopes cause problem or delay? I heard sometimes they cause extra charges?
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Post by ladytiger7647 on Oct 25, 2015 12:22:48 GMT
Think about who processes and sorts the mail for each piece of the address. You generally should address things in such a way as to be most intelligible to that locality. For example, in the US, addresses are written from most specific down to most general, with the last line (for international mail) being the country it's going to. For mail sent from the US, unless the country is CANADA, the US postal service does not read and does not care about anything that appears above it. However, they must be able to parse the country in order to send the mail to its next hop. So, you should write the country name in English (e.g. GERMANY and not DEUTSCHLAND) and in all capital letters without punctuation. You should also use the country names that the USPS recognizes, which does not include UK or UNITED KINGDOM. Although these often work because people know what you mean, the exact country is preferred (ENGLAND, WALES, etc.) and I have sometimes seen mail returned when addressed to "UK". Since the city usually won't be parsed until the letter has arrived in the appropriate country, it makes sense to use the local version of the city name, e.g. "Den Haag" and not "The Hague". Similarly, use street names in the local language (and local script is fine too, if sending to a country whose language doesn't use the Roman alphabet) because the local post office will have to figure out what to do with it. I can't speak to preferences for sending from other countries, but the general idea is that you should use whatever your local postal service prefers to see for the country, since they are the ones who have to get it headed in the right direction. This is very interesting, thanks for the post. Do these super decorated envelopes cause problem or delay? I heard sometimes they cause extra charges? From experience, I know that funky colored inks for addresses may not get processed correctly. I actually had a letter sent to me come back to me because the computer read the darker return address not the lighter address.
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Post by stormymorning on Oct 26, 2015 8:08:22 GMT
Interesting info all around! Here in The Netherlands, I think they are not so picky. For national mail, you only need the postal code and street number for mail to arrive. Name or street don't matter, probably unless something of the numbers is hard to read. International mail usually comes through too, whether being addressed as Holland or the national language of the country someone sent it from (eg. Someone writing to me from France sending it to Pays Bas, which is the French name for my country) About the Russian addresses, I can only remember it bring longer because they include a line of 'neighbourhood' ("kvartira"), which probably comes from the communist era. If I come across another long Russian address, I'll try to figure it out but I forgot the rest (I've studied in Russia for a couple of months). Dutch address: Name Street and number Postal code and place Country So for example: Jan Smit Beatrixstraat 5 4295 AB Heerhugowaard The Netherlands As far as I know, it is not neccessary to write my terribly long country name in capitals I did learn to underline the country name, but to be honest I don't know if it has any effect.
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Post by hoyabella on Dec 22, 2015 17:16:31 GMT
A typical Italian address read: Mario Rossi via Garibaldi 1 06081 Assisi PG
name street, number 5 digit zip code, town, two-letters code for the province
The Italian regulations are rather strict about the format: the address must be written at a certain distance from the envelope margin and the like. Also the envelope format is strictly defined, at least if one want his/her mail stay within the cheapest price range. In Italy most times the sender's address is written on the back of the envelope.
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