The vocabulary course of today focuses on family members. So, to be exact, in Japanese, we are going to use very specific words to speak of one’s own family and other words to speak of the family of others.
For today, we are going to learn how to talk about your own family. To talk about the family of others, we will see that in another vocabulary course.
The peculiarity of these words is that they are used to designate members of one’s own family. Consequently, we will translate them by adding the corresponding pronoun "my". For example, the word 娘 . むすめ alone will translate to "my daughter".
There are many peculiarities on most of these words that we will see as we move forward, including unique plurals in Japanese but also words that are pronounced exactly the same way but which are written differently and have a slightly different meaning.
I will not go into more details at this time. We will discover this together little by little and in conclusion, I will provide you with all the necessary explanations.
Now that this introduction is done, I leave you with the vocabulary list below. Take your time to learn all of these new words. Do not hesitate to take breaks and go back to read them again and again until you remember all these new words perfectly.
夫 .
おっと
. my husband
妻 .
つま
. my wife
父 .
ちち
. my father
母 .
はは
. my mother
子供 .
こども
. my child
息子 .
むすこ
. my son
娘 .
むすめ
. my daughter
祖父 .
ソフ
. my grandfather
祖母 .
ソボ
. my grandmother
孫 .
まご
. my grandchild, my grandson, my granddaughter
We saw these first vocabulary words. Now, if we want to speak of our parents or our grandparents in the plural, there are very specific words to designate both our parents on the one hand, and our grandparents on the other.
両親 .
リョウシン
. my parents
祖父母 .
ソフボ
. my grandparents
These two words are to be memorized. These are special cases, that’s how they make their plurals in Japanese. We will see much later how the Japanese plural works more exactly.
双子 .
ふたご
. my twin
兄 .
あに
. my older brother
弟 .
おとうと
. my younger brother
姉 .
あね
. my older sister
妹 .
いもうと
. my younger sister
Now if we want to talk about our brothers and sisters, or only our sisters.
兄弟 .
キョウダイ
. brothers and sisters, brothers
姉妹 .
シマイ
. sisters
These two words are also to be memorized. Always special cases, do not ask questions, this is how the plural of these words work.
従兄 .
いとこ
. my elder cousin
従弟 .
いとこ
. my younger cousin
従姉 .
いとこ
. my elder cousin
従妹 .
いとこ
. my younger cousin
Now if we want to talk about our cousins (plural).
従兄弟 .
いとこ
. my cousins
従姉妹 .
いとこ
. my cousins
Same thing! Learn these plurals by heart. And what’s more, if you look closely, you will have noticed that the pronunciation of the kanji is exactly the same as their equivalent in the singular.
I leave you with the last vocabulary words to remember.
伯父 .
おじ
. my eldest uncle
叔父 .
おじ
. my younger uncle
伯母 .
おば
. my elder aunt
叔母 .
おば
. my younger aunt
大伯父 .
おおおじ
. my elder great-uncle
大叔父 .
おおおじ
. my younger great-uncle
大伯母 .
おおおば
. my elder great aunt
大叔母 .
おおおば
. my younger great-aunt
義兄 .
ギケイ
. my older brother-in-law
義弟 .
ギテイ
. my younger brother-in-law
義姉 .
ギシ
. my older sister-in-law
義妹 .
ギマイ
. my younger sister-in-law
As you can see, family is a complicated topic and the Japanese prove it to us because they have not simplified anything on that side. The ideal would obviously be to learn them all. It is not easy but it is possible, and I strongly recommend it to you. Otherwise you can be content to learn only about your family. Remember that all these words are used only to talk about your family, not that of others.
As promised, I will now provide you with some additional explanations so that you know how to use these words, especially orally, without being too lost.
You will have noticed that many words have a different writing and a slightly different meaning but are pronounced in exactly the same way. For example this word, 従兄, and this word 従姉, are both pronounced いとこ , both designating "my cousin" (masculine and feminine) We have exactly the same scenario if we want to designate our uncle or our aunt, whether it is the eldest or the cadet. The pronunciation is the same but the writing in kanji is different. All this means that you must know your kanji well because it is the only way, in writing anyway, to know who we are talking about. In addition to the context since Japanese remains a very contextual language.
Yet even in spite of the context that might help understand who we are talking about, what do we do if we don’t have the context ? Well, it’s very simple. If we want to talk about our elder uncle for example, we will not say "おじ" since 伯父 (elder uncle) and 叔父 (younger uncle) are pronounced similarly. Our interlocutor will not necessarily understand who we are talking about. But if we say "my father’s brother" or more simply, if we join the name of our uncle followed by 伯父さん . おじさん, in this case, the person we are talking to will understand who we are talking about. The Japanese themselves do it very often, moreover, this avoids any confusion.
You may also have noticed that certain words do not differentiate between genres. For example the word 双子 . ふたご can be translated as "my twin" depending on whether we are talking about a boy or a girl.
This course is now over, thank you for reading. Continue to be diligent in your work and you will make progress, I guarantee it.
I wish you to revise your course well.
Introduction