Family

Family roles are very common in Japan when referring to and addressing your own family. In saying this, it really depends on your personal preferences or what each family member prefers to use. Some children may use パパ for "Dad" or ママ for "Mum" instead of the normal words. Some of these words may switch honorifics between ちゃん (chan) and さん (san).

Including the word list above, here is another set of words but these are more common with children. Some adults especially women may continue to use them to act cute but generally most people switch to the regular words by the time of getting into secondary/high school.

You may refer to older siblings using their name and family role together. However, when referring to family who are younger than you, it's common to just use their name. Also, there is no word for brother and sister in Japanese, they are either older or younger than the you.

Also, it should be mentioned that it is not unusual that grandparents may refer to your parents using おとうさん or おかあさん, even your own parents may do so too; this is similar to English or at least in the UK where some parents may refer to each other as dad or mum when talking to their children.

Talking About Your Own Family

When talking to other people about your family members, it is more respectful to use the following words: (The reason we've added "My" here is because they should only be used when talking about your own family to people who are not your family members).

Even in formal settings, if you are talking directly to a family member, you would use the casual family roles seen in the previous section instead. However, when talking to someone who isn't family then these formal words should be used.

Talking About Other People's Family

Here are the words to use when talking about other people's family members. Notice that most of these are similar to the list before, except for "Your Siblings" which starts with ご; this simply adds more politeness and formality. Remember to be more respectful when talking about others' families.

Here, we can see that the さん (san) honorific is used. We'll look at honorifics in the next lesson to see why using ちゃん (chan) would make a difference.

Extended Family Roles

Here are the words that may be useful to refer to relationships or if you are married or talking about someone else who is married. Also notice that かのじょ can be used for "She" and "Girlfriend".

More Useful words

Here are some more useful words to know. The word おたく (otaku) may sound familiar as it has become an English word for "anime nerd", however, it originally means "Your honourable home" but is also used as a very formal and politer way of saying あなた (anata) "You". Some people may say it sounds outdated, though you may still hear it being used casually, sometimes in a business setting.

Be careful about using おまえ (omae); this means "you" but it is very casual or too familial and may make you sound very rude or even offensive in certain context. It should only be used with very close friends.