German Language Blog
Menu
Search

Writing a letter in German: Formal Letters Posted by on Apr 5, 2011 in Language

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

german 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

 

Tags: ,
Keep learning German with us!

Build vocabulary, practice pronunciation, and more with Transparent Language Online. Available anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Try it Free Find it at your Library
Share this:
Pin it

About the Author: Sandra Rösner

Hello everybody! I studied English and American Studies, Communication Science, and Political Science at the University of Greifswald. Since I have been learning English as a second language myself for almost 20 years now I know how difficult it is to learn a language other than your native one. Thus, I am always willing to keep my explanations about German grammar comprehensible and short. Further, I am inclined to encourage you to speak German in every situation. Regards, Sandra


Comments:

  1. jason:

    ohhh its so nice website for learning german language

  2. Yellow:

    Ich mochte – not with -en ending
    and Grussen – with -r- in it

  3. 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!

  4. lydiabenz:

    wir sagen nicht ich mochtenso wir konnen sagen ich mochte singular und nicht plural

  5. webdesign:

    ya nice words

  6. 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

  7. Huey Parras:

    Unquestionably believe that which you said. Your favorite justification appeared to be on the net the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed while people consider worries that they just do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and also defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people could take a signal. Will probably be back to get more. Thanks

  8. 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

  9. Karlene Kerl:

    My wife and i ended up being quite peaceful Emmanuel managed to do his basic research because of the ideas he got out of your web pages. It is now and again perplexing just to possibly be freely giving hints that many most people might have been selling. Therefore we realize we’ve got the blog owner to give thanks to because of that. Those illustrations you have made, the straightforward blog navigation, the relationships you can aid to instill it’s mostly spectacular, and it’s really making our son in addition to our family imagine that that topic is cool, which is certainly rather pressing. Thank you for all!

  10. traslochi napoli prezzi:

    Thanks for your helpful post. Through the years, I have come to understand that the symptoms of mesothelioma cancer are caused by your build up connected fluid regarding the lining on the lung and the chest cavity. The illness may start while in the chest place and distribute to other limbs. Other symptoms of pleural mesothelioma cancer include weight-loss, severe deep breathing trouble, fever, difficulty eating, and swelling of the neck and face areas. It should be noted that some people with the disease don’t experience any serious symptoms at all.

  11. 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?

  12. David (Pretoria, RSA):

    Thanks so much. Just great to have a basic starting point.

  13. 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

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. 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

  17. 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.

  18. 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