Relationship words

[abcdefg]

Went to a friend's wedding tonight. That always involves lots of introductions and I get deluged with relationship words which I've heard once or twice before but not really mastered.

 

The basics are easy, brothers, such as sisters, uncles and aunts, but when it comes down to the word for mother's older brother's wife's younger sister's son-in-law and I'm always left puzzled and wishing I had paid more attention to that chapter in the textbooks.

 

I've heard that 红楼梦 is full of such terms, including esoteric ones. Maybe knuckling down to read it would help.

 

 

 

[Tianjin42]

http://kwanfamily.info/culture/familytitles_table.php

For quick reference this might help for now.

[abcdefg]

That's a very helpful table. Thanks.

 

Tonight I was sitting next to my friend's 表姊妹 (father's sister's daughter.) Fortunately, I knew 表妹 from prior exposure, so it wasn't hard to extrapolate. But it went downhill from there. I also got tripped up a couple times by some of these terms having a formal version and a different informal version.

 

It almost became a game, with several relatives pitching in to give me a crash course right there at the table. The 白酒 did not help.

 

I'm really not sure how to approach learning these terms, not having grown up with them. It seems that brute-force, flash-card-style memorization would be a formidable and low-yield task. Not sure if the return on investment would make it worth the effort. 

[Shelley]

That's an excellent link, thanks Tianjin42. its got the lot

[Lu]

Perhaps learn the titles of all relatives of someone close to you (yourself, or your SO, or a good friend), and leave the rest unlearned. That way, every word gets associated with a person you know (or hear about), and it's somewhat useful. As long as the family you pick is not too small it'll give you a decent number of family words. When you come across words you don't know, you at least have some way of placing them (oh, so you're like the brother of a 嫂子), which makes things easier.

Do Chinese people actually know all the words? I'd think they mostly know the words for their own family members and occasionally get confused about the rest.

[Silent]

 

http://kwanfamily.in...itles_table.php

For quick reference this might help for now.

A harsh reminder of how little Chinese I know. I know maybe 15 actively, if you catch me at a bright moment I might get close to 20 and maybe a hand full I know passively. Compared to nearly 100 relationships defined in the link and probably more then 200 words if counting all the varieties... sad...

[imron]

I'm really not sure how to approach learning these terms

Watch TV dramas. There's always a distant relative or two appearing, and you'll get the terms for all the close-ish family members also.

[msittig]

I'm a strong visual learner so things like this help me more:

 

http://myhongkonghusband.com/2013/09/06/%E5%AE%B6%E6%97%8F%E5%85%A7%E7%9A%84%E7%A8%B1%E5%91%BC-confusing-family-titles/

 

In particular this:

 

http://myhongkonghusband.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/313860_270927653040133_91142847_n_zps576ee1ed.jpg

[geraldc]

This vid is useful

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFRoILS1jY

[abcdefg]

A harsh reminder of how little Chinese I know.

 

Same here, @Silent. It may be one of those things that will always separate the native speakers from those of us learning Chinese as a second or third language.

 

Watch TV dramas.

 

Agree with @Imron here. That's where I've learned most of the ones I currently know.

 

Have also picked up some regional variations through the medium of 电视剧。Remember watching one in which the northern members of the extended family called an elderly character 姥姥 while the southern branch of the family called her 外婆。

[Sydney Matt]

I find this hard enough in my native English, and that pales in comparison to Chinese! On top of that are the regional variations mentioned above, to add to the confusion.

My Chinese wife once asked me "What do you call your mother's brother's daughter in English?" "cousin" "And his son?" "cousin" and so forth. "They are all called cousin? Only one word?!" she said, somewhat astounded.

[abcdefg]

My Chinese wife once asked me "What do you call your mother's brother's daughter in English?" "cousin" "And his son?" "cousin" and so forth. "They are all called cousin? Only one word?!" she said, somewhat astounded.

 

That's exactly what I was getting last night. And the amazement of the people at my table was probably increased by family connectedness being more important to them than is is to us in the US. Sort of "How could your language not care about these important distinctions?"

 

Also, Chinese people often address relatives by just the "relatedness title" without even adding the person's name and thus might call someone simply 叔叔 whereas I would tend to call him Uncle Fred.

[Touchstone57]

How important do you think it is? I've been in this situation a few times before (at weddings), and it only seems useful to remember people who you will meet again, which narrows things down quite a bit. You will endlessly be introduced uncle's brother's son's sister's teacher's grandfather etc. Chinese people like to make a big show of introductions but it is superficial at best and you will probably never meet many of them again. Chinese people also tend to revert to generic titles and will often themselves forget how-exactly they are related to the person they are speaking to (they probably met 10 years ago at a dinner of some sort), so I tend to stick with the 叔叔， 阿姨 etc. 

[Lu]

Also, Chinese people often address relatives by just the "relatedness title" without even adding the person's name and thus might call someone simply 叔叔 whereas I would tend to call him Uncle Fred.

That's probably at least partly because they'll only have one 叔叔, in addition to a 伯伯 and a what have you, while you have a whole range of uncles.

And I agree with Touchstone. In the category of 'person-words', in my opinion it's actually more useful to learn how to address various people (领导，老师，阿姨，同志) than to learn the family words. Although ymmv of course if you're part of a large Chinese family.

[Demonic_Duck]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCFRoILS1jY

 

Bear in mind that this doesn't go into formal/informal distinctions or dialectical differences, though.

[abcdefg]

I agree that, and as far as I can see, it's not terribly important. That's what I've felt all along, but the large concentrated dose of family words at the wedding last night made me question whether or not my decision had been right. 

[陳德聰]

Nearly 100% of the time I just ask how I should address someone I've never met, and I let the people doing the introducing or the people who are related to that person do the guesswork of figuring out what the relationship is.

 

I only have Chinese family on my mom's side so I don't know any of the paternal kinship words and I've gotten pretty far without 'em.

[oceancalligraphy]

For the same generation, an easy way to remember is that 表 is representative of someone that does not have the same last name (ie father's sister's children, or mother's sibling's children) and 堂 represents someone who does have the same last name (ie father's brother's children).

It's important to know the family names when you're introducing family to other people and speaking to elders. For the same generation, it's usually pet names for younger cousins, and 姊姊 and 哥哥 for older cousins.

It does get thoroughly complicated when dialects are involved. Then I start having to translate between Mandarin and Taiwanese. A funny childhood story of mine is telling a teacher I didn't have 爺爺 and 奶奶 because they weren't terms I used at home, I've always called them 阿公 and 阿媽 for grandparents on both sides of the family.

In case it comes up in any conversations about family, 等親 is the degree of relationship. This chart http://www.clchen.org.tw/define/kinsfolk-1.GIF might help those to think in those terms. Here's a similar chart in English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consanguinity#mediaviewer/File:Table_of_Consanguinity_showing_degrees_of_relationship.png

[abcdefg]

For the same generation, an easy way to remember is that 表 is representative of someone that does not have the same last name (ie father's sister's children, or mother's sibling's children) and 堂 represents someone who does have the same last name (ie father's brother's children).

 

Thanks, @YST. That's helpful.

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Something else that's connected to this broad topic is how to best distinguish between people who are referred to as brother, sister and so on from those who are truly blood relatives. For example, often I'm introduced to someone who is the speaker's 姐姐 or 哥哥 but I don't know if this is a casual friendship title or an actual DNA kinship from being born of the same parents.

 

How do you usually ask that? Pretty sure I once knew, but now it seems I've forgotten.

[Lu]

是你的亲姐吗？/你们是亲姐妹吗？ If the speaker is born after 1980 or so, you can almost be sure it's not a direct sibling and ask 是你的表姐吗？