I’d like to write a letter to the editor of the Berliner Zeitung. It’s online, actually, but I have two problems:
1.) No way do I rememember enough German to write an entire letter in the language
and
b.) I’m not sure how to even find out where/who to address the letter to.
Any ideas??
Back when I took German in high school, I learned that many Germans are bi- or tri-lingual, with French and English being the two languages spoken most often (after the native tongue, obviously).
If that’s still true, then clearly someone in the Letters Dept. will be able to read your missive.
As for contact info, I’d look on the site you mentioned. If it’s unreadable to you, google and other search engines have automatic translators that give approximate, uh, translations.
Good luck. 
A non-snarky “Google is your friend” reply.
I googled for Berliner Zeitung, and to the right of the link in the search results, you can see an option called “Translate this page”. I did that, and found a link called [“Reader Contact”.](Verenigde State) I don’t know if you’re looking to write a Letter to the Ed, or if you want something else, but at least by translating the page, you should be able to find the info you’re looking for.
Muffed the URL, sorry:
:smack: :smack: :smack:
http://www.berlinonline.de/email/berliner_zeitung/.bin/index.php
Do you want to write a letter to the person who is the editor or a “letter to the editor” that you want published in the paper?
If it is the former, write in Englisch. Virtually every West German has learned some English in school. Someone with any kind of university degree, like an upper level journalist, has learned English plus another language.
In the east of Germany English didn’t have such a high priority and Russian was the default foreign language, but if you send your letter to a newspaper, finding an English speaker won’t be an issue.
If you wan’t to have the letter published it’s possible that your chances are worse with an English letter.
The central email address for letter to the editor is:
Leserbriefe at berlinonline.de
Misc. contacts:
http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-verlag/berliner_zeitung/.html/impressum.html
Thanks for all the advice. Yes, it’s a letter to the editor meant to be published. As for the subject material… well, it’s better not to get into it here. But I’ll check out all the links and go from there. Again, I wish my German was good enough to actually write it IN that language, but it isn’t.
Some remarks on letters to German papers in general (I don’t know Berliner Zeitung in particular):
most German papers have a ‘letters to the editor’ policy of being severely selective in what letters they publish; particularly if there are several letters on the same topic. A typical letters section is one-tenth to one-half print pages per day. So if your letter does not end up being published this is not unusual.
Short letters are given priority, and published letters are often edited for length, so it pays to be concise.
Often papers require letters to the editor to give the writer’s full address and a contact phone number (these are not published, though - usually just the city from the address; some few papers publish the full address).
regardless of where you have the letter translated, do get a native speaker of German to review the translation. There are a lot of pitfalls…