Someone of you asked to explain how to write a letter in German. So, I provide a step-by-step instruction for formal letters and an example letter in this post. I guess you will find a lot of varying explanations and examples when you surf the web or look it up in books but I do assure you that will be always safe with the explanation in the following.
1.) Your Address
You put your address at the top left. In the first line you can put the salutation Herr (Mr.) or Frau (Mrs.) to make obvious if you are a man or a woman. In the second line you put your full name. In the third line you put your street name followed by your house number. In the fourth line you put your zip code and town. Zip codes are always five-digit in Germany.
Frau
Gabi Müller
Musterstraße 1
12345 Berlin
2) Address of Recipient
You put the address of the recipient at the left underneath your address in the same order as your address. If the recipient holds a title, you put the title before the name.
Herr
Prof. Max Schmidt
Sonnenweg 7
56789 Hamburg
3) Date
You put the date at the right underneath the addresses. Dates are always written in the same way in German: day/month/year. You can either write it fully as digits or alternatively you can also spell the month in full. The word den (the) is optional.
Berlin, 05.04.2011 / Berlin, den 05.04.2011
Berlin, 5. April 2011 / Berlin, den 5. April 2011
4) Salutation
When you know the name of the recipient:
Sehr geehrte Frau … – Dear Mrs. …
Sehr geehrter Herr … – Dear Mr. …
When you do not know the name of the recipient:
Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren – Dear Sir or Madame
5) Greeting
Mit freundlichen Grüßen – This is the most common form of greeting for formal letters and I always use it.
Example Letter
die Adresse – address
die Postleitzahl – zip code
der Absender – addresser
der Empfänger – addressee; recipient
der Straßenname – street name
das Datum – date
der Tag – day
der Monat – month
das Jahr – year
die Anrede – salutation
Grußformel – (form of) greeting
Comments:
jason:
ohhh its so nice website for learning german language
Yellow:
Ich mochte – not with -en ending
and Grussen – with -r- in it
Marita:
The only thing I learned differently here is that the main part of the letter always starts with a capitalized letter as opposed to a US business letter that always starts with lower case.
It is funny that a letter starts with ‘very honored Mr. or Ms.’ – sounds old fashioned but is still used that way!
lydiabenz:
wir sagen nicht ich mochtenso wir konnen sagen ich mochte singular und nicht plural
webdesign:
ya nice words
george whitehead:
I took the liberty to correct your English, I hope you don’t mind…Writing a letter in German: Formal Letters
Some of you asked how to write a letter in German. So, here is a step-by-step instruction for formal letters and an example letter. I guess you will find a lot of varying explanations and examples when you surf the web or look it up in books but, I do assure you that you will be safe with the following explanation :
1) Your Address
Put your address at the top left. In the first line you can put the salutation Herr (Mr.) or Frau (Mrs.) to make obvious if you are a man or a woman. In the second line you put your full name. In the third line you put your street name followed by your house number. In the fourth line you put your zip code and town. Zip codes are always five-digits in Germany.
Frau
Gabi Müller
Musterstraße 1
12345 Berlin
2) Address of Recipient
Put the address of the recipient on the left underneath your address in the same order as your address. If the recipient holds a title, you put it before the name.
Herr
Prof. Max Schmidt
Sonnenweg 7
56789 Hamburg
3) Date
Put the date on the left underneath the addresses. Dates are always written in the same way in German: day/month/year. You can either write it fully as digits or alternatively you can also spell the month in full. The word den (the) is optional.
george
Huey Parras:
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Onkar Tripathi:
Hello Sandra,
Your effort at teaching how to write formal letters in German is appreciated. However, in the first line of ‘main part’ of the Example Letter it should be “moechte” not “moechten”: Sorry, I dont have ‘umlaut’ on the keyboard of my laptop.
Best,
Onkar
Sandra:
@Onkar Tripathi Thank you, yes that’s right. Sorry, for the typo.
Sandra
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Imaan Essop:
sehr geehrte frau Sandra
ich bin ein schuelerin von die Deutsche Internationale Schule in Johannesburg, Suedafrika
ich schreibe in 2 monaten meine DSD II- damit ich in Deutschland studieren und arbeiten kann. was kann ich tun um meine schriftliche Deutsch zu verbessern?
David (Pretoria, RSA):
Thanks so much. Just great to have a basic starting point.
Est:
It is “Mit freundlichen Grüßen ” without a comma at the end.
e.g. (oder “z.b.” 😉 )
()…. weitere Lehrveranstaltung gewinnen können.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Gabi Müller
Kuma:
Hello madam!
I’m kuma from sri lanka. Could you please do me a favour? I want to get some explanations about following sentences. (Specially grammer rules)
1. Er hat einen guten vater.
Why can’t we write this sentence as follows
# Er hat ein guten vater or
#Er hat einen gut vater
Please explain the grammer rules related to this kind of sentences
Heidi:
@Kuma Hello Kuma
Rule 1. In German all nouns start with a capital letter. Vater is a noun so the first letter is capitalised.
Rule 2. With the verb ´haben´ you need to use the accusative forms, in your example
– the indefinite article changes from ´ein´ to ´einen´
– the adjective changes from ´gut´ to ´guten´
Hope this helps.
Heidi
Polski:
@Kuma Not so sure but i think because the ein also… relate with the vater which is a maskulin and the sentence is in akkusativ form.. not sure though.. hehe.. im still studying basic german
ibrahim labaran maina:
Er hat einen guten vater
i think that, this sentence is in akkusativ
because vater is masculine
so everything before it should be decline to maskuline
andn its akkusativ due to the word ^habe^
hope it helps you
Mayur:
Hello Madam,
Could you please tell me which tense is better to use in german formal email ? präsens or perfekt ?
Looking forward for your reply
Thanks in advance
Mshappy:
In the first line :
Herr= Monsieur = Mr
Frau = Madame = Ms
Mrs does not imply she is married but implies she is using her husband’s name. Miss implies she is single and prefers this fact to be public. Ms implies she is female with the same married/single status of Mr (ie unknown).
Unless you know she prefers otherwise, you should use Ms.
Trevor Stokes:
Is it really OK to end with
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
I thought, unless the letter is from a group or a family, it should end with the singular
Mit freundlichem Gruß