german_sentence_builder

Letter writing
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If you were to write a letter to someone in the German-speaking world and you
used the format used in writing a letter in English, your letter would undoubtedly
arrive at its destination and be understood. The German and English formats are
quite similar. But to be precise and to conform to the style preferred by German
speakers, you need to know how the German format differs.
The address
On an envelope, the first line of an address is the addressee’s title, followed by his
or her name. Remember that Frau is used for both married and unmarried women,
since the title Fräulein (Miss) is no longer in use. The next line in the address of
an envelope contains the street and number, and that is followed by the Postleitzahl
(zip code) and the city. Note that Straße is often abbreviated as Str. and the
title Doktor can be abbreviated as Dr.:
Herrn
Frau Professor
Martin Keller
Inge Bauer
Buchwaldstr. 92 Königsallee 14
79301 Freiburg 30890 Hannover
If you are writing from outside of a German-speaking country to an address
in either Switzerland, Austria, or Germany, you need to add the letters CH for
Switzerland, A for Austria, or D for Germany before the zip code, for example:
D-79301 Freiburg.
In a business letter written to someone at a company, the word Firma (company)
is followed on the next line by the name of the company. Use the abbreviation
z. H. (zu Händen) as the equivalent of attention in English:
Firma
Firma
Altdorf AG
Karl Benz
z. H. Herrn Martin Keller Finanzabteilung (finance department)
Buchwaldstr. 92 Königsallee 14
79301 Freiburg 30890 Hannover
On the envelope of a business letter it is common to skip a line between the street
address and the line with the zip code and city.
The sender’s address appears on the back of the envelope, preceded by the
word Absender or the abbreviation Abs:
Abs.
L. Baumann
Kalckreuthweg 7
20412 Hamburg-Othmarschen
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