relatives terms 親屬的稱謂

[semantic nuance]

Hi,

For Chinese, we have each single word for the relatives, such as 姑媽 (father's sister), 姨媽(mother's sister), 舅公(mother's uncle from mother's side), 叔公(father's uncle from father's side),etc. I was wondering if there's a single term for each relative in English? Anyone?

中國人的親屬都各自有一個稱謂, 像是姑媽, 姨媽, 舅公, 叔公, 等等. 我在想英文裡是不是每一個親屬也都有各有一個稱謂? 有沒有人知道?

[chinesetools]

You have to add extra qualifiers like "paternal", "maternal", "older" and "younger" in English to get the same meaning. There just aren't one word equivalents. For a comprehensive list of Chinese family relationship terms and the English equivalents, see http://www.mandarintools.com/family.html

[ZhuJiesheng]

Like Chinesetools said, although in normal conversation you don't really differentiate between them often. Most of the time you'd just say 'my uncle/aunt' etc.

[amego]

Most of the time you'd just say 'my uncle/aunt' etc.

In Singapore, when a person is addressing older strangers, or a friend's parents, etc, we use "Uncle/Auntie", nobody uses 叔叔/阿姨 etc...