I believe All China is our Ancestor. We are family and Most people (Chinese) seperate because they want to travel in other countries (like Japan, Korean, American, Indonesian & etc). + it’s really complicated. Some ancestor are enemies. China are the most populated country in the world, imagine if 1000 billions Chinese people lives in China, it could fit lol. The reason why China are the most populated because of Forcing by their parents, aunt, uncle or grandparents.
+Mary JieZoe Hahahaha!! I had to use 4 sheets of A4 paper. You just can't have one sheet of paper when you have 19 aunts and uncles , 58 cousins and at least 40 nieces and nephews.
this is why us black people just call everyone their cousins apart from immediate family, even family friends. so much easier since we have massive families too
It a bit hard to learn all the names for the different people, but at the same time they are making things easy for themselves. With just one word they can instantly tell you who their talking about instead of having to say "my great granddaughter from my daughter´s side husband".
This is why every time when a family comes over or when I go to China for a visit I ask my parent, how do I call them? I ask them all the time. All the time. Every time. yup.
@@gautamgulde9456 Ignore what the other user told you because we definitely _do_ have step family members, half family members, etc in China. The breakdown: 后妈 （hòu mā）= step mother 后爹 （hòu diē）= step father 继哥 （jì gē）= step older brother 继弟 （jì dì）= step younger brother 继姐 （jì jié）= step older sister 继妹 （jì mèi）= step younger sister Also, fun fact, one of the first stories of Cinderella came from ancient China so stepmothers are definitely a thing in Chinese culture.
It's actually easier than it seems in the video. Besides mom dad grand blabla, there are only 5 basic titles 姨，姑，舅，叔，伯. Understand these five then follow the patterns: 1 The five basic titles are used to address siblings of all your elders including parents and grandparents. Use the five as prefix when addressing grandparent's siblings. e.g. 伯爷爷(uncle-grandpa) 2 Those with the same family name are assumed closer, thus those who don't, such as parents of your mother and children of your daughter, have the prefix 外(out). e.g..外孙，外公 3 (Helpful one) Whenever there's a cousin involved, whether yours or your parents' or grandparents', you use the word 表 or 堂 before everything. 表for those with different surnames, 堂for those sharing the same family name. e.g..表姑姑（cousin-auntie) 4 To address whoever marries your relatives, put suffixes 妈 or 夫 after your relative's title. e.g. 姐夫(sister-husband) Doesn't apply to elder brother's or younger uncle's wives, don't know why.
Bradxyz it just depends on the side you are talking about. if you are talking about your wife's sister, you just call her just like your wife does regardless of your age. it's just about your title. you are the husband, then you can call your mother in law Mom even if you are only 2years younger.
@@TestingBradley nothing about the age. In some big family, a old man may call a little baby grandpa or something like it. Sometimes you are in a same class in school with you grandson, awkward, but you must call it right, at least back in the family. We don't call others name, it's impolite.
@@TestingBradley what ever your wife call them, you follow, the easiest part. if you are 81,and your wife is 18.and her sister is 19. you call her big sister just like your wife call her. Husband the same.
In different places of China，we also have different names for them. I'm not talking about dialect，I'm talking about some vocabulary that mean the same thing.
I actually understood 90% of this because I meet my extended family very often. It's helpful when you're trying to figure out their position in the family.
Would it be disrespectful ? Probably yes. But honestly, I don't think its that big of a problem if I miscall my mom's aunt or my dad's uncle's cousin. As for my ethnicity, I am Chinese. This method is antique and outdated anyways. I'm not a fan of this patriarchal system. How, people from the mother's side are regarded as "outsiders". There's advantages to a lack of differentiation though, if I'm talking about my 外孫女 you instantly know who I'm talking about. Where as, in a language like English. I have to say "my daughter's daughter" or "my granddaughter, _name_". Since this system is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and widely used I don't expect it to change. Now, I don't know if this is just in my experience. But often, the people whom are "outsiders" are not treated up the same standards as the father's "insiders" side of the family. I don't see that as a good thing at all. I think both sides should be weighed equally in both title and reality. This world, has for most of history been a patriarchal one. And while genders are *not* equal in roles and biology. They should be equal under law and title. Children should either be named after both (like the Spanish) or whoever cares more about their last name. But really, at the end of the day... its just a name. I do not care about your title. I will treat everyone with the same levels of respect and I will expect nothing *less* in return.
This stuff is easier to remember when you actually have a chinese family and just regularly call them by their "terms". I actually never really realized how complicated this was until I watched this.
I remember when I saw this video for the first time thanks to 9gag I was like omg this is so confusing but interesting and this video gave me motivation to study Chinese and now my Chinese it's getting better and better :)
I am a Chinese and I love and am proud of our tight and huge family tree. Each branch of our family tree is an opportunity of help when you are in trouble.
I do that all the time. It's impossible to remember all of it. Both my mom and dad got 7 siblings. Image the pain. Also, I got total of 4 pairs both paternal and maternal grands.
Do you mind if I record this and slow down the audio something like 85%? Then I can listen to it in my car for say, 4 or 5 hundred hours until it sinks in.
Every time I return to my parents' hometown during Chinese New Year, I feel like I'm in a reeducation camp. Yes. The old people will educate me about the kinship terms. EVERY SINGLE YEAR.
To be honest, I really like the specificity of the system despite the fact that it's more complex. For the grandparents, though, more formal and official terms are zumu and zufu for the paternal side, and wai zumu and wai zufu for the maternal side.
Watching this video makes me happy that most of my family lives in HK where I never see them. Ever. So I don't have to call them a bunch of complicated names. I probably shouldn't have said that but yeah.
What the eff this is so complicated I never follow this and most of my relatives live here... then again, I'm so "western-washed", meaning I don't speak Mandarin or Cantonese, which probably plays into that... still, so complicated, she lost me at "Mom is mama"
All i have to know is what to call everybody on my dad’s side... Which is totally not hard _at all_ ’cause my mum’s side lives in HK. I’m considered white-washed. But like, i speak mandarin and cantonese, i show proper respect and etiquette to my elders and blablabla and i follow most of the rules. I still go to chinese school. In just not a FOB.
But this is not even the confusing part! =D It only really gets confusing when it comes to your grandparents siblings extended family. (a.k.a. your parent's cousins). Yes, they each have their own 'names' as well. And there is also the numerical system, when you have more then one sister for example. Your eldest sister will be 大姐 (Big sister), your second eldest sister will be 二姐(second sister), 三姐, 四姐 and so on. And yes, it applies to every single aunt/uncle/grandaunt/granduncle/sister's husbands/brother's wife etc.. etc... ... I guess you kind of get the hang of it when your Chinese parents have 9 other siblings. =)
If your father is the fourth son of your grandparents, and your grandparents fifth child is a female, do you call that fifth child "fifth aunt" (because she is the fifth child) or "fourth aunt" (because she is the fourth daughter)?
@@jessicag630 No, you use the number only for the same rank, so if you have only one aunt, then you just call her aunt. If the grandparents have five sons and five daughters, they rank based on the same title, so if the youngest is a daughter, then you would call her "fifth aunt".
In different parts of China, these terms can be quite different. Maternal grandparents for example is different in the south than north. I have never heard Female's in-laws called 奶奶 and 老爷. For me and most of China, it's 婆婆 and 公公
***** I think it is your preference really. You can call her jie jie out of respect but you don't really have to and it wouldn't reflective badly on you if you don't. Her official relations to you is 大姨子 da yi zi. But you don't call her by that. It's used in when explaining your relationship to other people.
I’m Chinese and I find that a lot of these term I use for different parts of the tree. For example: I use 老爷 for my maternal grandpa, I use dàyí (can’t find the words) for my moms sister.
In Filipino: If a woman is older than you, for the exception of your mother and your grandmother, you call her tita. (Tee-tah) If she is slightly older than you, she is your ate. (Ah-teh) If a man is older than you, for the exception of your father and your grandfather, you call him tito. (Tee-tō) If he is slightly older than you, he is your kuya. (Koo-yah) Not that complicated...
01:54 to write: If you are a female 🚺 your brother's son in Chinese character is your "姪仔" and your brother's daughter is your "姪女". or If you are a 🚹 male your brother's son in Chinese character is your "侄仔" and your brother's daughter is your "侄女".
Ruslan Volkonsky But actually they'll not. The Chinese birth rate in cities like Shanghai and Beijing is below average in the world, and Chinese government is encouraging people to have more kids~of course now only in more developed areas, but in far countrysides people never stopped having more kids anyway~
Actually the population is not really declining but they are trying to change the one child policy due to the major gender imbalance which is causing many guys to not be able to find a wife.
Also in my family there is this story that is told all the time. My Dad comes from the countryside and my family lived there for about 400years, so lots of people are somehow (distantly!) related to us. So family meals, even when I grew up, involved my grandparents and other family members discussing how various people are related to us. There is a family in our family tree at some point that had like 12 or 13 kids. This throws the generations off as there was such an age gap. Also, most people who are related to us, are somehow related to us through this family. So they get discussed a lot! Let's say their name was Middleton. My Dad as a little boy, heard these conversations all the time. And it's complicated to understand. To this day I'm one of the few people in my friendships who understands the differences between first, second and third cousins and also how "removed" they are. Eg first cousin twice removed, or second cousin once removed, etc (basically removed is if it's someone from a different generation - so my (first) cousin's child, is my first cousin once removed.) I learned that after years of having it explained every time one of us children asked. It basically took my whole childhood for me to fully grasp it. Anyway, back to my Dad. He heard these conversations and came away with the impression that you that Middleton was a type of relationship. He thought for years that he had first cousins, second cousin, third cousins and Middletons!
i gave up on that so long ago now im like "yeah, hello i know you" *waits for my sisters to call them something and they be like "why arent you adressing me?" *me and my sisters look at each other for help*
This is pretty much the story of my life LOL. My grandmother on my mother's side has over one hundred family members, who are all closely knotted. Every single time I go back to China I have a hard time knowing who's who. It only got into the grandparents level here. Wait until all the grand-uncles, second cousin, third cousin thing starts, then it gets complicated. LOL
Anyone else watch this for their Chinese Class? I have watched many Off The Great Wall videos for my Chinese Class. This is a great channel for people who want to learn Chinese.
OH. MY. GOD 🤯 Now I know why there are so many different names being called when I watch Chinese dramas.... I really love how everyone has a different name! Wow that's pretty cool! You wouldn't have to explain which someone in your family is to someone outside of it cause they each have their own special name ❤
If you think this is bad, remember that pre-One Child Policy, Chinese families tended to be quite large. Case in point: my paternal great-grandparents had 7 children in total: four girls and three boys. One boy is still alive, three of the girls (including my 奶奶) are alive and well. Now, when you factor a large number of great aunts and uncles into this tree, that's where things REALLY start to get messy. For starters, you have to remember who's older than the other (or who came first). This can be a surprisingly simple system. The eldest grand relative is usually called 大姨 or 老姨 (insert title for grandma here) or 大舅 or 老舅 (insert title for grandpa here), with the remaining relatives titles beginning with their birth order: 二姨奶奶 (for the second eldest grandma), 三舅爷 (for the grandpa born third), etc... And then, once you start factoring in THEIR families... it just really gets out of hand. Every time I go to a big reunion, I always have to ask someone "how do I address that person?" Sometimes, even they don't know.
There is more than one way of calling all your families..... apparently there are 2 mainstream ways (YES, ANOTHER COMPLEX SET OF NAMES) e.g: I actually call my mum's mum, which is my grandma - 外婆 , and her dad - my grandpa - 外公. people might think why the hell they have so many names, that's because Chinese tends to take the "male is the most important" idea seriously, it all evolved around this idea. e.g: you keep your father's surname, thus your mother's parents theoretically shouldn't treat you as a family, because you don't have the same surname. Hence the name: 外孙，外婆，外公 (outside grandson, outside grandma, outside grandpa) Many Chinese kids had this experience, and me been one of them never understand why the hell by not having their surname means you should be treated badly. Furthermore, I don't understand why you need to put all your money and effort into your drug/gambling addicted son and choosing to abandon a high achieving daughter. How the fuck is making your drug addicted son happy gonna help you or him in any shape or form?? at the same time forcing the high achieving daughter to stop school and reduce her living cost just so that you can buy more drug for your son and let him gamble more. Sometimes, I am really frustrated with this fucked Chinese logic. SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE FUCK?!! PS: I'm a guy, and I am telling a true story of my good friend(female) family.
Make her your equal wife and give her your surname and live happily ever after xD Or encourage her to become a feminist businesswoman then make her family believ in her too :D:D
it takes 4 minutes to say every family member in Chinese but on speed run.. DAMN! well, better get started, so my brother's wife's sister's second child that is a girl is ...
Kovaxim The Random We don't have a name for such a far relative so you can just call her by her first name since she is from a younger generation than you (:
Actually，people from southern China and northern China call these relatives in different way. For example，in the south we call mother's mother 外婆，but in the north， they call 姥姥. Besidess，in this video，there are some mistakes，there is no 伯娘，we call her 伯母.
Much respect to whomever gets both their names AND family tree positions right. Imagine having a little cousin and trying to explain to him/her where the hell she is in the family tree...
even my parents are confused. Adding in the fact my mom and her cousins are still really close so i see my mom's cousins and second-cousins a lot. Now i just call everyone either uncle or auntie.
Lao wai here! My mom's mom and dad had my mom and her two younger siblings, my aunt and uncle. My aunt has one male cousin who's younger than me. All of my cousins on my dad's side are from my dad's older sister, all of them are older than me, female, and almost all of them are married and have sons, some are older than me while some are younger, and two of them have one daughter each , both younger than me. Mom's Mom is what? Mom's Dad is what? Mom is 妈妈. My younger sister is 妹妹. Mom's younger sister is what? Mom's younger sister's son is what? Mom's younger brother is what? Dad is 爸爸. Dad's older sister us what? Dad's older sister's daughter is what? Dad's older sister's daughter's husband is what? Dad's older sister's daughter's son older than me is what? Dad's older sister's daughter's son younger than me is what? Dad's older sister's daughter's daughter younger than me is what?
Mom's Mom is 外婆 in Mandarin and 婆婆 in Cantonese. Mom's Dad is 外公 in Mandarin and 公公 in Cantonese. Mom is 妈妈. My younger sister is 妹妹. Mom's younger sister is 阿姨. Mom's younger sister's son is 表弟 Mom's younger brother is 舅舅 just as older brother. In short, anyone on my mom's side is considered "external" 外, and the cousins on your mom's side is given the term 表, such as 表弟 or 表姐. Dad is 爸爸. Dad's older sister is 姑妈. Dad's older sister's daughter is 表妹 or 表姐 depending on whether she is younger or older than you. 妹 is younger sister, 姐 is older sister. Dad's older sister's daughter's husband is 表妹夫 or 表姐夫. 夫 means the husband of. Dad's older sister's daughter's son older than me is 表儿甥 with 甥 meaning nephew. Dad's older sister's daughter's son younger than me is ....Well, I don't think your nephew is younger than you, so yeah.... Dad's older sister's daughter's daughter younger than me is...again, I don't think your cousin's daughter or your niece would be younger than you.
believe it or not this is still simpler than my family tree at least they all have titles so your not like Lisa is that uncle so and so daughter no that grandmas sisters husband child
well just like Indian family tree!! but Indian family tree is a bit more complex because the name changes for the same person depending on the place and amount of respect .
For more Hispanic family you have you aunts and uncles aka your tios and tias and the cousins that are significantly older than you are also refered to as tio or tia and then you got your grandparents which they are called nana/abuela and tata/abuelo and your godparents aka your ninos and ninas.
echoeddra8on We count our parent's cousins as (Tios/Tias) uncles & aunts, I call my older cousins cousins, but once they reach their 30s I can begin to call them Uncles/Aunts.
My older cousins are primos,One of those cousin's nickname is Tata,so that's what I call him Primo Tata. My grandpa because he's Italian we call him Nono and our Latino grandma is called Nona just because she is married to him. But we also call them Abuelos not Nana & Tata. An my godparents are my Comadre & Compadre.
Before we go visit family I always ask my mom how to call them and them try to memorize it as fast as possible Xd sigh... Why can;t we just have aunt, uncle, cousins etc. like evryone else? T-T
Линь Чан LOL of course you don't look like one, that's why I ask... because I thought you said somewhere that you had similar difficulties with calling your relatives... So I was super curious !! Russian looking Chinese is surely rare. :P PS: I'm Chinese, but grown up in Australia.
婆婆，公公are rather not common names for grandparents from mother's side. those names are rather for parents from the husband's side!!!! this is a small mistake..In China, 外公，外婆 are much more popular. or 姥姥，姥爷！！please pay attention to it!
+Kelsie LeCrone Just out of curiosity, do you use a different name to call and refer to your aunts and uncles from different sides of the family? Like, do you call your dad's brother something different from what you call your mum's brother?
+Kelsie LeCrone Oh, thanks. In my family, my nieces and nephews can call me Auntie Elaine( in Mandarin) but they use the system like in the video to call their mum's and dad's siblings. I have to greet my aunts and uncles using a variation of those terms in dialect.
+Geek Dragon It's simple. Your son's husband is儿婿（儿means son，婿means husband） your daughter's wife is 女媳（女means daughter，媳means wife） your 孙子(son's son)'s husband is 孙婿 (孙grandson 婿husband） your 孙女(son's daughter)'s wife is 孙女媳 (孙女granddaughter媳wife) your 外孙(daughter's son)'s husband is 外孙婿 (外孙grandson婿husband) your 外孙女(daughter's daughter)'s wife is 外孙女媳 (外孙女granddaughter媳wife) Do not ask me why i know! T^T
