Family in Chinese: A Complete Guide to Chinese Family Members

Compared with English-speaking countries, Chinese family tree is much more complicated. Because in addition to generation and gender, the appellation of Chinese family members also takes into account factors such as maternal and paternal lineages, marriage, relative age, consanguinity and so on. Not only foreigners but also many Chinese people are confused by the Chinese family appellation. If you want to learn how to address your family in Chinese, here we have collected all kinds of Chinese kinship terms.

We also wrote an article about how to address Chinese people you meet like a native you may be interested in. By the way, if you want to speak fluent and idiomatic Chinese, you can check out our spoken Chinese course, which provides a large number of daily expressions you cannot learn in textbooks.

Chinese Family Tree / Family Members in Chinese

Different from western culture which focuses on nuclear families, Chinese family attaches great importance to consanguinity, so there is often a big family behind Chinese people, that is, the nuclear family plus the extended family. Therefore, the Chinese language is very rich in terms of relatives, and almost every single of our relatives has a corresponding term.

Primary Members of Nuclear Family

Members of Extended Family

Family of Father’s Side

Note: Many families in China have more than one child (which is one of the reasons for the complicated Chinese family tree), so you may need to address more one than person using the same kinship term. For example, your father has three older brothers. What would you call them? Well, in this case, we will use the prefix “大(dà, great/elder)”, “二(èr, second)”, “三(sān)” to distinguish “伯父” according to their age. So we call the eldest brother of our father “大伯”, the second eldest brother of our father “二伯”, and the third eldest brother of our father “三伯”. This trick also works with other kinship terms.

Family of Mother’s Side

Note: Your maternal cousins in Chinese are also “表哥” “表姐” “表弟” or “表妹”.

If you think these titles are difficult to memorize one by one, you might as well learn to sing the following Chinese Family song.

SUPPLEMENTARY:

Mother-in-law in Chinese

Father-in-Law in Chinese

Sister-in-law in Chinese

Brother-in-Law in Chinese

Nephew in Chinese

Niece in Chinese

Grandson in Chinese

Granddaughter in Chinese

Conclusion

These are kinship terms of family members in Chinese. Do you remember them all? Make sure you are able to address everyone by the correct kinship, because it is a sign of politeness and respect. If you find we are missing the appellation of Chinese family members you want to know, let us know in the comments, and we will answer your questions.