text: what happens to post that has a different alphabet to ours? who translates the post when it comes in from a country with a different alphabet to ours ie arabic or chinese the universal postal union has a rule: when writing addresses on international mail items in arabic, mandarin, cyrillic characters (or, for that matter, any other characters either than the latin ones) you should write the addresses also in english or french.   however, if that does not happen and a mail item arrives with the address only in arabic, for instance, the post office has the obligation of having it and translated in order to deliver it to the addressee or re-send it to the proper destination or even return it to the country of origin, if the former actions two are not possible.