How to adress someone/start a letter in Japanese?

Question:

What I mean by this is, generally in English speaking countries you start off with "Dear ____" and then move on to whatever you wish to talk about.

How do you address the person you are writing to in Japanese? Are there any phrases you should place in the beginning or end of your letter?

How do you sign your name at the end? (as in "Regards, Yours Truly etc." type phrases?)

Answer:

Formal letters in Japanese are very complicated.

For example. you must put seasonal greeting after 拝啓. Seasonal greeting means a sentence talking about climate of this month of year. Like this,

晩春の候、皆様にはますますご清栄のこととお喜び申し上げます。

This is for May. Japanese MS Word has some templates for this.

Anyway, letter format changes depending on the purpose of your letter (birthday celebration? wedding celebration? saying thank you for something? etc).

You don't have to care all format now because it's very difficult to learn it right now. Just use 拝啓 and 敬具. And we do not put the name just below 拝啓.


When you are writing a fanletter, you do not have to stick general format. So you don't even need 拝啓 and 敬具.