拜年貓紙 The complicated world of Cantonese kinship terms

記得細個拜年時出左lift就行到去人地單位果一秒，總會窒住左，問父母：「慘喇！一陣點叫人？」（阿婆會鬧「過年唔可以講個慘字！」😓）

Remember when you were a kid going bai3nin4 during Chinese New Year, and you panic at the last second because you don't know how to call your aunt/cousin/uncle's aunt/ cousin's wife's mother? And you ask your parents and they tell you a term that you've never heard of and it's super confusing? 

Now, there is a app for that! 

三姑六婆 Lite - 親戚稱呼計算機

You just plug in your step-by-step relationship with the person in question, and it generates the exact term you should use to address them!

You can download the app here and try it out yourself.  

If you want to go the traditional route, here is a giant family tree chart: 

Photo credit: Cantonese Museum

Kinship terms are really a complicated system of simple formulae; I never thought you could use math to solve a linguistic puzzle! 

I tried to figure out a few "formulae"/tricks when I was a kid: 

1. If the person is around your age (i.e. your generation) and has the same surname as you, it's a 堂X; if they have a different surname, it's a 表X
2. Trying to figure out how to address your spouse's immediate family? Just use what your children would call that person, and add a 大 in front if they are older, and a 仔 after if they are younger. 

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, like if you aunt married a man who happens to have the same last name. And there are variations on how people use these kinship terms depending on individual family traditions. 

Now that we have the tools, let's do a quiz to test your application: 

What do you call: 
小測時間！以下親戚點稱呼？

你嫲嫲個家姐個孫女？
你表姐個老公個妹個仔？
你姨媽個表妹個老公？