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In Mandarin there are so many titles, and even family friends can get them. I'm glad that in English we can just call someone by their first name (with a simpl

by HKH2 4y ago

In Mandarin there are so many titles, and even family friends can get them. I'm glad that in English we can just call someone by their first name (with a simple title if need be) and ignore all the awkwardness of not knowing someone's title when we want to address them for the first time.

zoomablemind 4y ago
>... In Mandarin there are so many titles, and even family friends can get them. I also heard that it's customary to mention the titles instead of resp. names. That is instead of saying Aunt Jane, they'd need to say a specific title in the father's or mother's hierarchy.
- HKH2 4y ago
  That's definitely the case for relatives of previous generations. You never address them by name.
- k_sze 4y ago
  Note, however, that in some places, it is OK to combine the name + title for disambiguity, instead of relying solely on the attachment of an ordinal number. e.g. for your father's sister, who is the 3rd child, you could say either: - 三姑 ("father's sister, 3rd in birth order"), or - 艷姑 ("father's sister, Yan"), if she has the character "艷" in her name.
vore 4y ago
To make matters worse, due to the influence of the other Sinitic languages (Wu, Yue, Min, etc.), Mandarin actually has regional variations of a lot of these words as well!
keybored 4y ago
English is way to formal with its sirs, ma’ams, doctors, professors, and so on.
- sitharus 4y ago
  That really depends on where you are. The USA is really weirdly keen on using titles like that compared to where I live.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- fy20 4y ago
  In my country you typically refer to someone by their first name informally, or first and last formally. Newspaper articles often abbreviate the first name, e.g. J. Doe. The only time I see titles used is when someone is a medical doctor, or if you are referring to your teacher (Mr / Mrs). On the other hand a peculiarity compared to English is the surname has different suffixes for men and women, and for married and unmarried women. Divorced women will often revert back to their pre-married surname, but keep the married suffix.
z2 4y ago
Indeed family relationships are complicated enough to warrant _calculators_ to tell you what term to use: https://lishengzxc.github.io/relativecalc/ https://lishengzxc.github.io/relativecalc/

by HKH2 4y ago

zoomablemind 4y ago

>... In Mandarin there are so many titles, and even family friends can get them. I also heard that it's customary to mention the titles instead of resp. names. That is instead of saying Aunt Jane, they'd need to say a specific title in the father's or mother's hierarchy.

HKH2 4y ago
That's definitely the case for relatives of previous generations. You never address them by name.
k_sze 4y ago
Note, however, that in some places, it is OK to combine the name + title for disambiguity, instead of relying solely on the attachment of an ordinal number. e.g. for your father's sister, who is the 3rd child, you could say either: - 三姑 ("father's sister, 3rd in birth order"), or - 艷姑 ("father's sister, Yan"), if she has the character "艷" in her name.

vore 4y ago

To make matters worse, due to the influence of the other Sinitic languages (Wu, Yue, Min, etc.), Mandarin actually has regional variations of a lot of these words as well!

keybored 4y ago

English is way to formal with its sirs, ma’ams, doctors, professors, and so on.

sitharus 4y ago
That really depends on where you are. The USA is really weirdly keen on using titles like that compared to where I live.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
fy20 4y ago
In my country you typically refer to someone by their first name informally, or first and last formally. Newspaper articles often abbreviate the first name, e.g. J. Doe. The only time I see titles used is when someone is a medical doctor, or if you are referring to your teacher (Mr / Mrs). On the other hand a peculiarity compared to English is the surname has different suffixes for men and women, and for married and unmarried women. Divorced women will often revert back to their pre-married surname, but keep the married suffix.

z2 4y ago

Indeed family relationships are complicated enough to warrant _calculators_ to tell you what term to use: https://lishengzxc.github.io/relativecalc/ https://lishengzxc.github.io/relativecalc/