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I understand that it's Sehr geehrte Frau Marie for females, Sehr geehrter Herr John for males, Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren for Dear Sir/Madam.
But what is 'Dear (name)' such as 'Dear John,' or 'Dear Marie,'?
I'm looking for the unisex version that would be used in formal letters such as:
'Dear Charlie, how are you?'... Charlie in this case is difficult to determine whether it's a male or female.
The ususal translation of "dear" is "lieber" (male) or "liebe" (female), and I can confirm that this adjective is actually used in German correspondence if one wants to use a less formal tone. The problem with this is the same as with "Sehr geehrte/r" and with any other adjective: The male and the female forms differ.
You can use "Liebe/r Charlie" but that somewhat defeats the familiarity of "Liebe"/"Lieber".
If you want an informal unisex way of addressing people you can use "Hallo" or "Guten Tag" as already suggested in the comments. The former is very informal.
Es gibt keine Unisex-Anrede in der Einzahl im Deutschen, weil es keine geschlechtslosen Substantive gibt.
Selbst wenn ein sächliches Generikum vorläge, wie
Liebes Mitglied
ist das sprachlich ein Geschlecht, das sächliche nämlich.
Liebe Charlie oder lieber Charlie
wäre eine formale Fluchtmöglichkeit, aber die Unkenntnis, ob es sich um eine Frau oder einen Mann handelt dementiert die Nähe, die das 'Liebe/Lieber' vermitteln will. Bei einer unpersönlichen Anrede ist es aber auch nicht besser; auch da wirken zwei alternative Formen unglücklich.
In einem sehr informellen Kontext kann man sich in ein unverbindliches "Hallo" flüchten:
Hallo Charlie,
It's a bit more difficult to preface correspondence in German because most of it will be gendered. At the least, if you aren't comfortable with "Herr/Frau Charlie" then you can write "An Charlie" (ein Brief an Charlie, in Akkusativ) which really should have the first and last name.
This is more something you'd put on a letter so others know that it isn't meant for them, but it works for your purpose.
In my correspondence, I generally use "Herr/Frau jdm." unless it is very obvious. At the very worst, I just put their full name.
