Sunday, October 23, 2011

Chinese relationship tree

I guess we never talked about how to call the different family members in Chinese language. Below I have tried to create a simple Chinese family structure. It shows the Chinese terms for the most immediate family members. Hope this is helpful.

[Click to expand]

Just in case you can't read the above picture properly, I have listed them below:

爷爷 (yéye): Grandfather (father’s father)

奶奶 (nǎinai): Grandmother (father’s mother)

外公 (wàigōng): Grandfather (mother’s father)

外婆 (wàipó): Grandmother (mother’s mother)

爸爸 (bàba): Father

妈妈 (māma): Mother

伯伯 (bóbo): Uncle (father’s older brother)

叔叔 (shūshu): Uncle (father’s younger brother)

婶婶( shěnshen): Aunt (father’s sister)

舅舅 (jiùjiu): Uncle (mother’s brother)

姨妈 (yímā): Aunt (mother’s sister)

哥哥 (gēge): Older brother

嫂子 (sǎozi): Sister in law (Older brother’s wife)

姐姐 (jiějie): Older sister

姐夫 (jiěfu): Brother in law (Older sister’s husband)

弟弟 (dìdi): Younger brother

弟妹 (dìmèi): Sister in law (Younger brother’s wife)

妹妹 (mèimei): Younger sister

妹夫 (mèifu): Brother in law (Younger sister’s husband)

(wǒ): Me

爱人 (àirén): Spouse

儿子 (érzi): Son

女儿 (nǚ'ér): Daughter

孙子(sūnzi): Grandson (Son’s son)

孙女 (sūnnǚ): Granddaughter (Son’s daughter)

外孙 (wàisūn): Grandson (Daughter’s son)

外孙女 (wàisūnnǚ): Granddaughter (Daughter’s daughter)

9 comments:

  1. This is fantastic. Could we have uncles and aunts added?

    Can titles be interchanged? I've heard yeye and nainai can be used for grandparents on either side of the family

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  2. It would be great if you could update this with uncles, aunts and cousins.

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  3. I have updated it with uncles and aunts. If it is too small to read, you can click on the picture to make it bigger.

    And yes I have seen people use yeye and nainai for both grandparents as well. But using waigong and waipo would clear any doubts on which set of grandparents you are talking about.

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  4. Can I still this blog post and change all the family relationships to Nepali?

    ReplyDelete
  5. You may definitely steal it but not sure how you will still it :)

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  6. Good job on the graph. Very clean.
    There is more complicated one without pinyin here: http://www.learn-chinese-language.com/?attachment_id=21

    I was actually thinking of making my own chart with VUE for the public domain, but that one is fairly complete, with exception of 5th Gen: 高祖父, etc and 4th Gen: 曾外婆, etc

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  7. Thank you so much. Very helpful.

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  8. What should my 二舅的二儿子的女儿call me? I'm older than my 二舅二儿子。

    ReplyDelete
  9. 婶婶 isn't father's sister (姑母), but wife of father's younger brother.

    ReplyDelete