Comments on: Making Family Vocab Personal

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 10:12:12 +0000

John, great blog. I fell in the comfort zone of finding it too messy to bother learning, choosing to focus on other “more useful” vocab. I wrote about this in a post called Why a meal is worth more to me than my grandmother.

Greg

http://mandarinsegments.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-meal-is-worth-more-to-me-than-my.html

By: Nate

Nate — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:01:15 +0000

So we should learn these terms by thinking of our own families while trying to memorize them, and encourage students studying English to do the same when learning the English terms. Thanks for the post.

By: Tim P

Tim P — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:02:21 +0000

Boy! I sure am glad that I got that Firefox add-on that translates. Maybe some of other non-Chinese-speaking-but-your-blog-readers-anyway would appreciate it. I can get translations of the Chinese comments as well as any Chinese that you haven’t thoughtfully added the translation of in the blog entry.

By: GAC

GAC — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:32:25 +0000

I have a similar tactic. Of course, I haven’t married into a Chinese family, but when I talk to Chinese friends about my family, I always try to figure out what title to give them. Sometimes I have to talk to my mother to clarify just exactly how I’m related to someone, but that way I’m not just learning new Chinese words — I’m also learning more about my rather large extended family.

By: Dodo

Dodo — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 20:46:17 +0000

OMG for years and years I had no idea what I should call my dad’s younger sister’s husband. I feel so embarrassed when get him on the phone when I tried to call my cousin. I had no idea what to say…. why is it so complicated? I wish I could just use his name but then I didn’t know what his name was either.

By: InF

InF — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:47:35 +0000

I've always had trouble with this. I grew up most of my life away from my extended family, even in China, so I always had trouble with addressing people. I agree with what you said about learning family relationships before you have a family, especially when there are differences between the north and the south.

For example, in the north, on my dad's side, grandpa, grandma, uncle (older than my dad) and his wife, uncle (younger than my dad) and his wife, aunt (older than my dad) and husband, and aunt (younger than my dad) and her husband are 爷爷，奶奶，大爷（二大爷, and so on) and 大娘，四叔（五叔，老叔 being the youngest) and 四嫂，大姑（二姑，so on) and 姑夫

On my mom's side, grandpa, grandma, uncle (older than my mom) and his wife, aunt (older than my mom) and husband, and aunt (younger than my mom) and her husband are 老爷，姥姥，大舅（二舅）and 大舅妈, 大姨（二姨, so on) and 姨夫, and 老姨 being the youngest.

These things I feel like are not really substitutable with the "formal" titles for people. A lot of times it gets really confusing talking to other family members and what they refer to other people. Like one of my cousins would refer to my mom and dad as 三姨 and 三姨夫, and another would refer to them as 三姑 and 三姑父, this would also change if I were talking to my 老叔, 二大爷 or 舅妈. For awhile, I couldn't figure out that they were actually referring to my parents. I am entirely surprised that Chinese people are able to keep track of people like this.

By: 液压扳手

液压扳手 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:42:15 +0000

哈哈～很有意思吧，你既然在中国待了9年了，应当不奇怪才是

By: DMH

DMH — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:48:53 +0000

This is why I like Esperanto. All the terms are easily memorizable. Father = Patro Mother = Patrino (the -in- makes the person female) Uncle = Onklo Aunt = Onklino grandpa = avo grandma = avino brother = frato sister = fratino brother in law = bofrato sister in law = bofratino father in law = bopatro etc... There's even a prefix to indicate a mixed group of male(s)/female(s). Ge- gepatroj = parents (the -j = plural) gefratoj = siblings geonkloj = Aunt(s) and Uncle(s) geavoj = grandparents gebofratoj = brother/sister in law mix

See, easy. You learn one root and then a couple of suffixes and prefixes and you're good to go.

However, my wife's Russian and they have a pretty good system of names to put up against the Chinese...