ihr or Ihr?

a2

A single letter decides the level of address: lower-case ihr is the familiar plural you or the possessive her, capital Ihr belongs to the polite Sie. In an email to an authority that is not a detail.

ihr (klein)

Two things at once: the personal pronoun ihr (several people you address informally) and the possessive ihr (her, their).

Habt ihr eure Tickets dabei?Have you got your tickets with you?

Ihr (groß)

The possessive belonging to the polite Sie. Always capitalised, including mid-sentence and in every inflected form: Ihre, Ihrem, Ihren.

Vielen Dank für Ihre Nachricht.Thank you very much for your message.

The mistake

Sehr geehrte Frau Weber, vielen Dank für ihre Anfrage.

Sehr geehrte Frau Weber, vielen Dank für Ihre Anfrage.

The salutation is formal, so the possessive must be capitalised. In lower case it refers to some third person who does not appear in the letter at all.

Rule of thumb

Ask whether you address the person with Sie. If so, capitalise - and then do it consistently throughout the text.

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