Address Order
In Japanese, the address is written in order from largest unit to smallest, with the addressee's name last of all. For example, the address of the Tokyo Central Post Office is
- 〒100-8994
東京都中央区八重洲一丁目5番3号
東京中央郵便局
- 〒100-8994
Tōkyō-to Chūō-ku Yaesu 1-Chōme 5-ban 3-gō
Tōkyō Chūō Yūbin-kyoku
or
- 〒100-8994
東京都中央区八重洲1-5-3
東京中央郵便局
- 〒100-8994
Tōkyō-to Chūō-ku Yaesu 1-5-3
Tōkyō Chūō Yūbin-kyoku
The order is reversed when writing in roman letters, to better suit Western conventions. The format recommended by Japan Post is:
- Tokyo Central Post Office
5-3, Yaesu 1-Chome
Chuo-ku, Tokyo 100-8994
In this address, Tokyo is the prefecture; Chuo-ku is one of the special wards; Yaesu 1-Chome is the name of the city district; and 5-3 is the city block and building number. In practice it is common for the chōme to be prefixed, as in Japanese, resulting in the somewhat shorter
- Tokyo Central Post Office
1-5-3 Yaesu, Chuo-ku
Tokyo 100-8994.
Note while almost all elements of the address are reverse in roman, connected strings of numbers are treated as units and not reversed. Firstly, the "city block and building number" is a unit, and its digits are not reversed – in this example it is "5-3" in both Japanese and roman, though the Japanese (literally Yaesu 1-Chōme 5-3) is partly reversed to "5-3, Yaesu 1-Chōme" in roman if chōme is separate. Similarly, if the chōme is included, these also form a unit, so in this example the string is 1-5-3 in both Japanese and roman.
Read more about this topic: Japanese Addressing System
Famous quotes containing the words address and/or order:
“If you address a ghost as “Thing!”
Or strike him with a hatchet,
He is permitted by the King
To drop all formal parleying—
And then you’re sure to catch it!”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)