Writing Letters in Spanish
The following information about writing letters in Spanish is
not exhaustive, but should be regarded as information which will
make your letters more "Spanish" and very importantly may avoid
misunderstandings or misinterpretations. Being familiar with some
of the conventions of Spanish letter writing will also be of
interest when you receive letters in Spanish or English from
Spanish native speakers.
Laying out the letter
In formal letters if you are writing on a plain sheet of paper,
it is normal to write your name, without title, above your address
at the top of the page, either on the left or the right–hand
side of the sheet. When writing your own address, it is of course
quite correct to place commas at the ends of lines, if you wish.
However, when writing the address of your Hispanic addressee in a
formal letter or on the envelope, it is worth remembering that
end–of–line punctuation is not the norm in Spanish
letters and may even be regarded as a mistake or something which
may cause a letter to be misdirected. The addressee’s name
and address should be inserted on the left–hand side of the
sheet above the opening greeting. In a letter to someone with a
title, in a business for instance, this is placed after the
addressee’s full name. Note some of the courtesy titles that
may be used to men and women.
To a man:
Sr. D. full form Señor Don = Mr
(Level: formal)
Sr. full form Señor = Mr (Level: formal)
To a woman:
Sra. Dña. full form Señora Doña =
Ms or Mrs (Level: formal)
Sra. full form Señora = Ms or Mrs (Level:
formal)
Note the use of points above. The full forms are given for
information only and are not normally used in ordinary
correspondence.
In many Spanish–speaking countries addresses may have what
appear to be somewhat complicated combinations of numbers and even
letters. These are very important and usually refer to the number
of the building in the street, followed by the number of the floor
on which the person lives. More numbers and letters refer to
apartment numbers on a shared landing. For example:
Sra. Laura López Hernández
c/ Francisco de Silvela, 14, 4º
28077 Madrid
This means that the addressee lives at number 14 Francisco de
Silvela Street on the fourth floor. You can key the raised º
by typing Alt and 167, using the number keypad on your
keyboard.
When writing an informal letter it is customary not to include
either your own or the addressee’s address. In this type of
letter it is sufficient to write the name of the place you are in,
followed by the date at the top of the page. The place is the town,
city, village or other recognizable location.
Medina, 11 de octubre de 2002
Note that in writing the date, the day number is followed by
de, which again follows the name of the month. The
convention is to write dates: day–month–year. More
informally you can write this information in numerals:
11–10–02.
In formal letters when you have included the addressee’s
address, the date would be written: 11 de octubre de
2002.
Greetings
In formal letters when you do not know the person to whom you
are writing:
Muy Señor mío:
Muy Señora mía:
Muy Señores míos:
Rather less formal is the greeting using the word
estimado–da:
Estimado Señor:
Estimada Señora:
Estimados Señores:
This opening appears on the left–hand side. Note the use
of the colon.
A very formal and impersonal opening is: De mi
consideración:
If you know the name of the addressee, the following greetings
are appropriate:
Estimado Señor Pérez:
Estimada Señora González:
In a business letter when you have established a good
relationship with the addressee, estimado–da followed
by the addressee’s given name is appropriate:
Estimado José:
Estimada María:
In informal letters or when you know the addressee well, an
opening following querido–da is appropriate:
Querido Rafael:
Querida Beatriz:
Queridos Beatriz y Rafael:
Querido Papá:
Closing the letter
If you read correspondence manuals in Spanish you will probably
be surprised at how many potential letter endings there are for
formal correspondence. Modern practice, particularly in Spain, is
to use a limited number of endings and to keep them shorter and
less formal than was formerly the case. The following are should be
adequate for most situations.Your signature should follow directly
below, as it would in English.
Formal endings
A la espera de sus prontas noticias, le saluda atentamente,
Sin otro particular, le saluda atentamente,
Le saluda atentamente,
Atentamente,
Less formal endings
Un cordial saludo,
Cordialmente,
In friendly personal letters, the following are often
used:
Un abrazo,
Un fuerte abrazo,
Un fuerte abrazo de tu amigo,
The ending Un abrazo is often used in business
correspondence and even in internal company memos or e–mails,
where a friendly relationship exists between the parties.
In letters to family members endings are obviously freer, but
some typical ones are:
Un afectuoso [or cariñoso] saludo,
Afectuosamente,
Un beso,
Besos,
Con todo mi cariño,
Addressing the envelope
The address should be carefully written taking account of the
comments made above. If you want to include your return address on
the envelope, this should be written on the back of the envelope
after the word: Remite. An example would be along the lines
of:
Remite: Mary O’Reilly, 867 Fifth Avenue, New York
NY10022.
Street names
In many Spanish–speaking countries the full street name is
often abbreviated in correspondence, so that a name like:
Avenida de la Independencia,350
could be written:
Avda. Independencia,350
or even,
Independencia,350
This is something to be aware of when you are given what may
look like a very abbreviated street address. Abbreviations
appearing in addresses such as Avda., c/, Apdo. etc are given
alphabetically in the Oxford Spanish Dictionary. The
shortened form of the street address may be used with
confidence.
Spanish surnames:
These can appear to be long and complex. There is an explanation
of the conventions regarding surnames in Spanish–speaking
countries in the vocabulary-building note "Spanish surnames" under Vocabulary-building notes about the Spanish language (in
English).
Married and unmarried women
Married women often use their unmarried surnames in Hispanic
countries, see the surnames information above. The equivalent of
Miss, Señorita abbreviated to Srta., is used
less and less. The trend is for Señora abbreviated to
Sra., to be used for all women regardless of marital
status.
Download specimen letters of formal and
informal correspondence
