How to talk about family members in Japanese
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| Jessi: Family members. Hi everyone and welcome to appendix lesson #12. |
| Naomi: In this appendix lesson, you will learn family related vocab. |
| Jessi: Now, there is something that’s really important to know when it comes to family related vocabulary in Japanese and that is, there are two sets of words that are used. |
| Naomi: The first set of words is used to talk about your own family members. |
| Jessi: Right. And the second set of words are polite terms that are used to talk about someone else’s family members with respect. |
| Naomi: It’s important not to mix up these two sets of words. |
| Jessi: Right. So let’s get into the vocabulary words. I will give the English words and then we will introduce both sets of terms and tell you how they are used. The first word we will look at is father. |
| Naomi: 父 (chichi). 父 (chichi) is the word used to talk about your own father. お父さん (o-tō-san) is used to talk about someone else’s father. |
| Jessi: Right. And note how the word お父さん (o-tō-san) has the polite prefix (O) and polite suffix (san). Remember that these make the word polite. So you are showing respect by using this term. The next word is mother. |
| Naomi: 母 (haha). 母 (haha) is the word used to talk about your own mother. お母さん (o-kā-san) is used to talk about someone else’s mother. |
| Jessi: Right. Now, what’s the word for parents? |
| Naomi: When you are talking about your own parents, the word for parents is 両親 (rōshin). When talking about someone else’s parents, you use ご両親(go-rōshin). Here we add the polite prefix ご (go) to the word. |
| Jessi: Right. Let’s move on to the words for brothers and sisters. The next word we will look at is older brother. So note that in Japanese, when you want to say brother or sister, you have to specify whether they are older or younger. So the next word is older brother. |
| Naomi: 兄 (ani) means your own older brother. お兄さん (o-nī-san) is used to talk about someone else’s older brother. |
| Jessi: The next word is older sister. |
| Naomi: 姉 (ane) means your own older sister. お姉さん (o-nē-san) is used to talk about someone else’s older sister. |
| Jessi: The polite forms of these words also have the polite prefix (O) and the polite suffix (san) added to them. Now let’s talk about younger siblings. The next word is younger brother. |
| Naomi: 弟 (otōto) means your own younger brother. 弟さん (otōto-san) is used to talk about someone else’s younger brother. Here we just add san to the word さん (san) to make it polite. |
| Jessi: The next word is younger sister. |
| Naomi: 妹 (imōto) means your own younger sister. 妹さん (imōto-san) is used to talk about someone else’s younger sister. |
| Jessi: Right. So, Naomi sensei, what word can we use to refer to siblings as in both brothers and sisters in general? |
| Naomi: Siblings is 兄弟 (kyōdai). When talking about someone else’s siblings, you say ご兄弟 (go-kyōdai). Here we add the polite prefix ご (go) to the word. |
| Jessi: Right. Now, we’ve been introducing two Japanese terms for each vocabulary word. One term that’s used to refer to your own family member and another that is more polite and is used to refer to someone else’s family member. Let’s recap some of the words we introduced in this lesson. My father is |
| Naomi: 父 (chichi) |
| Jessi: Someone else’s father is |
| Naomi: お父さん (o-tō-san) |
| Jessi: My mother is |
| Naomi: 母 (haha) |
| Jessi: Someone else’s mother is |
| Naomi: お母さん (o-kā-san) |
| Jessi: My siblings is |
| Naomi: 兄弟 (kyōdai) |
| Jessi: Someone else’s siblings is |
| Naomi: ご兄弟 (go-kyōdai) |
| Jessi: But there are times when you can actually use the so called polite term to refer to your own family members. Right, Naomi-sensei? |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) Right. In informal situations, you can talk about your family using the polite term such as お父さん (o-tō-san) for father and お母さん (o-kā-san) for mother. Children also address their family members using this form as well. |
| Jessi: So, a child might call their father お父さん (o-tō-san) and their mother お母さん (o-kā-san) and so on, right? |
| Naomi: そうですね。(Sō desu ne.) Right. |
| Jessi: Very interesting. Having two sets of words might seem confusing at first. So make sure to check the lesson notes where you can see them side by side and compare them. The lesson notes also include a lot more family related vocabulary that we haven’t covered here like grandfather, grandmother, husband, wife, son, daughter et cetera. |
| Well, that’s all for this lesson and for this appendix series. Thanks for listening. |
| Naomi: じゃ、また。(Ja, mata.) |
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