Hoping someone can translate this address for me.

[Nate]

Hello everyone, I received a letter at my post office today written in Chinese, and was able to verify the city and state with translation software, but the translated street names don't match anything I can deliver to. I know this is a language of context, so I'm hoping someone here can provide me with some less obvious street names.

 

 

[imron]

Is there any more information you can provide about this, or any more of the address not included in the picture?

It looks like the country (U.S) and state (Iowa) is provided, but not the city.  Out of curiosity, what city did the translation software find?

The Chinese for the street name will just be an approximation of the sound of the address and may not correspond to an actual official name.

It will almost certainly end in: ...ton Ave/Rd,

[Nate]

The first two characters are "US" and the following four characters give "Iowa," with the Zhou character as the qualifier for the state name. The four characters prior to 176 give the city name (Burlington) and "Avenue". The character after 176 is the qualifier for the address number (i.e. No. 176). The mystery character here is cheng (sheng). Moving characters around has given me the following possibilities for the street name, none of which match a deliverable address:

Sheng

Cheng

Shing

Mason

Hold

I'm starting to think that, like you said, it's a phonetic approximation, but I can't think of anything similar to these that work. That is, unless, these are not pronounced in Chinese the way they are in English.

 

I'm hesitant to show more of the address, as it could reveal the addressee's name. I don't want to infringe on their privacy.

Edited December 3, 2013 at 09:05 PM by Nate

[imron]

Does Burlington have a 'Main St'?  If so that's almost certain to be it.

 

Addresses in Chinese follow the pattern of:  Country, State, City, Street.  Looking at that address in Chinese, it looks like the City has been entirely left out and only has the Country, State and Street, with '盛灵顿大街' as the name of the street.  If you say 盛灵顿 is the city, then it could make sense that 大街 refers to main st.

[imron]

I'm not so sure though that 盛灵顿 is Burlington.  The first syllable is too different.  Is there perhaps a city like Charlington or Churlington or Sharlington or something similar?

[Nate]

The only other two cities in Iowa with -lington are Aplington and Arlington. Is it possible that the city AND street are Burlington?

[imron]

It's possible that the city and the street name are the same.

 

It's also possible that the middle syllable isn't ling, but something similar len, leng, lin etc.

 

Given the way that transliterations work, the last syllable is almost certain to be -ton however.  What other cities are there that end in -ton?

[Nate]

There's a Clinton.

[roddy]

Nate, if you want (and the Mailman's Code allows) you could send either me or Imron a private message with a photo with more info, and we'll be able to tell you if there's a name on there or not. 

 

Also, I note a Sheridan Avenue and a Sheridan St, both in your fine state. In the absence of any better info, I might guess at those. Do they go up to 176?

[imron]

From the address alone I don't think your going to be able find a match with 100% confidence. Do you have a way to match names and addresses?

My next step would be to look at main st and streets that match the name of the city for all cities in Iowa that end in -ton, and see if the name of the resident at #176 matches with the name on the envelope.

[imron]

Also consider ones that end in -dan or -don

[Nate]

We have the ability to match names to a degree. As you can see from the *possible* name on the envelope (see pm), though, it hasn't been easy pinning anything down.

[gato]

There is no zip code on the envelope?

[imron]

From the envelope I saw in the PM, there doesn't appear to be a valid US zip code.

[skylee]

How about 176, Main Street, Sheldon, Iowa?

[gato]

There is a city called Linden in Iowa. How about 176 Main St, Linden, Iowa?

Maybe you can do a search for the recipient's name in Linden.

http://m.mapquest.com/places/united-states-postal-service-linden-ia-289405240/

[fanglu]

Why would someone write a US address in Chinese? It just seems so bizare. It's understandable people writing romanizations of addresses in countries that use non-roman scripts (eg China), as roman script is very widely used and understood around the world. Chinese characters are not. Nor is there a widely used system for transliterating roman names into Chinese, which there is in the other direction.

 

Maybe someone is testing the US postal system.

[skylee]

Re #9, I think roddy's suggestion of Sheridan Ave of Iowa City, IA is possible.

[roddy]

Just as follow up - Imron spotted that the zip code was a valid Chinese, rather than US one, and there was a company of the right name at that zip code. So the current theory is that someone got hideously confused when writing the address. 

[skylee]

Thanks for the update, detective.