Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
I have found that when written in romaji, things actually tend to be delivered more quickly if written out the exact same way you`d write them in Japanese.
Prefecture first style. I actually tested this by having relatives mail two letters at the same time, one with the Japanese ordering on the address and the other with the "standard" romaji version. The Japanese version got to me a week  earlier. |
I don't think you can assume that would happen every time. My grandmother's letters from Australia have arrived here in Tokyo in as little as 3 days, and she writes the address in the standard English order, similar to what I gave above. She also writes in fairly hard-to-read cursive, but that doesn't seem to slow her letters down any.
There is no reason to think that writing an address in the standard order would make letters take a week longer when most letters and parcels I receive take less than a week to get here (usually from NZ, Australia and the US). I have had things take two weeks or more, but the address is always written the same way, so in my experience at least, it's irrelevant. I have never in 12 years here had a letter or package go missing, that I am aware of.