How to Talk About Family in Korean

Being able to talk about family in Korean is an extremely important skill. Like many other cultures, family life is an extremely important part of Korean culture, and whenever you meet a Korean person, one of the first questions they will ask is about your family.

Although this is a common topic of conversation, it can be rather complicated, as there are many different Korean terms for family members. In addition, it’s important to address older family members by the appropriate title instead of using their name. This makes learning Korean family titles essential for anyone learning Korean.

In this article, we will explain how to use these family titles and how to talk about family in Korean. We will also cover important aspects of Korean family culture.

The immediate family

The Korean word for family is 가족 [ga-jok]. Most important is our immediate family, which in Korean is 직계 가족 [jik-gye ga-jok], so let’s first learn all the different titles for our immediate family. The table below shows some of these.

The word for parents is 부모, but when we talk about parents in general (whether ours or someone else’s), we tend to add the suffix 님 and say 부모님. We also add this suffix to other names and titles to show respect. For example, when referring to our grandparents, we add 님 to the word 조부모 (‘grandparents’) and say 조부모님.

아버지 and 어머니 are more formal titles for mother and father, but the use of these titles is very common, especially by older people. The informal titles 아빠 (dad) and 엄마 (mom) are more commonly used by young people, though a lot of older Koreans still sometimes refer to their mothers as 엄마.

The titles for mother and father are extremely important as we often use these titles to address other people’s parents – it’s very common for a Korean to address his or her friend’s parents as 어머니 (mother) and 아버지 (father). Sometimes, we add the suffix 님 to show added respect, saying 어머님 [eo-meo-nim] or 아버님 [a-beo-nim].

Examples of how to talk about family members in Korean:

• 가족이 어떻게 돼요?
  [Ga-jok-i eo-tteo-ge dwae-yo?]
  (Tell me about your family.)
  

• 저희 가족은 저희 부모님, 형, 그리고 저까지 네 명이에요.
  [Jeo-hi ga-jo-geun jeo-hi bu-mo-nim, hyeong, geu-ri-go, jeo-kka-ji ne myeong-i-e-yo.]
  (There are four people in my family – my parents, my older brother and me.)
  

Korean siblings

Titles for Korean siblings can be a little complicated as you have to use different titles depending on whether you are a man or a woman. The table below shows these titles.

In Korea, when we address our older siblings, we use these titles. So for a woman to address her older siblings, she would use 오빠 and 언니, while a man would use 형 and 누나. When we address our younger siblings, we can just call them by their names.

Knowing these titles is extremely important since we can also use these titles to address people in our social lives. So if you go to a gym and become close to another gym member who happens to be a few years older than you, then you can use these titles to address them.

Lastly, due to the low birth rate in Korea, more and more people do not have any siblings, so to say that you are an only child, you can use the word 외동 (only child).

Examples of how to talk about siblings:

• 형제가 어떻게 돼요? [Hyeong-je-ga eo-tteo-ke dwae-yo?]
  (Do you have any brothers or sisters?)
  

• 저는 언니 두 명이 있어요. [Jeo-neun eon-ni du-myeong-i i-sseo-yo.]
  (I have two older sisters.)
  

• 저는 형제가 없어요. [Jeo-neun hyeong-je-ga eop-seo-yo.]
  (I don’t have any siblings.)
  

• 저는 외동이에요. [Jeo-neun oe-dong-i-e-yo.]
  (I am an only child.)
  

We also have different titles for different relationships between siblings. There are titles to refer to the relationship between brothers, between sisters, and between brothers and sisters.

We don’t use these titles to address people, but we use them to talk about siblings in different families. So if someone we know has two kids, and they are both girls, we can refer to their kids as 자매.

Examples of talking about sibling relationships:

• 저 집 자매는 다 의사야. [Jeo-jip ja-mae-neun da ui-sa-ya.]
  (All the sisters in that family are doctors.)
  

• 남매가 정말 닮았어. [Nam-mae-ga jeong-mal dal-ma-sseo.]
  (The brother and sister look so alike.)
  

Married couples

Married couples in Korea are called 부부 [bu-bu], and there are numerous titles we can use for husband and wife.

부인 is a formal word meaning ‘wife,’ generally used to refer to other people’s wives, not your own. The more common term for wife is 아내, but nowadays the word 와이프 (which comes from the English word ‘wife’) is becoming more common.

Extended family terms in Korean

The word for extended family is 확대 가족 [dae-ga-jok], and 친척 [chin-cheok] means ‘relative.’ To refer to relatives on the father’s side, we say 친가 [chin-ga], and to refer to relatives on the mother’s side, we say 외가 [oe-ga]. We can add the syllables 친 and 외 to specify which side of the family we are referring to. So to refer to the grandfather on the father’s side, we can say 친할아버지, and to refer to the grandmother on the mother’s side, we can say 외할머니.

The table below shows some of the other words we use to talk about our extended family.

To refer to uncles on either side of the family, we can add the syllables 친 or 외, so 친삼촌 refers to uncles on the father’s side, and 외삼촌 refers to uncles on the mother’s side. We can also say 친숙모 or 외숙모, though the use of 친숙모 is not so common.

When we talk about uncles and their wives on our father’s side, we often use other titles.

In general, we only use these titles when addressing or referring to uncles who are married. If they’re not, we address them as 삼촌.

Family clan

Nearly all Korean family names have one syllable, and of all the family names, the most common are 김, 이, and 박. The table below shows how common the top five most common Korean family names are by percentage of the population.

Every family belongs to a specific clan. The word for ‘clan’ in Korean is 본관 [bon-gwan], which roughly means ‘place of origin.’

Common names like 김 include many different clans. For example, there is the 김 family from 김해 (Gimhae), the 김 family from 안산 (Ansan), and the 김 family from 전주 (Jeonju). However, for less common family names, there is only one family clan, like 단양 (Danyang) for the family name 우 [Woo].

In general, everyone in Korea knows their family origins, and while we don’t ask about each other’s family origins when we first meet someone, it is something we may ask after getting to know them. Here is how we ask about someone’s family origins:

• 무슨 김 씨예요? [Mu-seun Kim ssi-ye-yo?]
  (What ‘Kim’ are you?)
  

• 저는 김해 김 씨예요. [Jeo-neun Gimhae Kim ssi-ye-yo.]
  (I’m a Gimhae Kim.)
  

One of the important reasons to know one’s clan is because of marriage laws. In the past, it was illegal for you to marry someone from the same family clan. However, this law changed in 1997, so you can now marry someone from the same family clan as long as there is a certain distance in the relationship. We calculate the degree of a relationship through 촌 [chon], which we explain below.

Understanding 촌

촌 is a unit that indicates the distance between relatives. To refer to the distance between different relatives, we use a sino-Korean number and 촌. To calculate 촌, we have to work out the link between ourselves and each relative based on our family tree.

Below are some examples of how we use 촌.

일촌 (1 chon)
There is only 1 일촌, and they are our parents. They are the only family members we have a direct connection to.

• Me ► Mother and Father

이촌 (2 chon)
Through our parents, there are two types of people we can have connections to – our grandparents and our siblings.

• Me ► Mother and Father ► Grandparents
• Me ► Mother and Father ► Siblings

삼촌 (3 chon)
Through our grandparents and siblings, we can connect to our aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces – and they are our 삼촌. Interestingly, this is also the word for uncle.

• Me ► Mother and Father ► Grandparents ► Aunts and Uncles
• Me ► Mother and Father ► Siblings ► Nephews and Nieces

사촌 (4 chon)
Through our aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces, we can connect to our cousins and our grandnephews and grandnieces – they are our 사촌. Just like the term for uncle, because of this distance in the relationship, the word for cousin in Korean is 사촌.

• Me ► Mother and Father ► Grandparents ► Aunts and Uncles ► Cousins
• Me ► Mother and Father ► Siblings ► Nephews and Nieces ► Great-nephews and Great-nieces

We refer to this distance between families as 촌수 [chon-su]. So if you want to ask what the distance is between family members, you can ask the following questions:

• 촌수가 어떻게 돼요? [Chon-su-ga eo-tteo-ke dwae-yo?]
  (What is the family relation degree?)

• 저희는 육촌이에요. [Jeo-hi-neun yuk-chon-i-e-yo.]
  (We are six degrees apart.)

And in Korea, while you can marry someone from the same clan, you have to ensure there is more than 팔촌 (8 chon) distance between you and the person you want to marry.

Family by marriage

Marriage is a joining of two families, and there are many family titles for family members on the husband’s or the wife’s side of the family. The table below shows titles for the husband’s side of the family.

In general, we always have to use the Korean family titles when we are addressing those with seniority, such as the husband’s parents and siblings. However, when we speak to those with lower status, it can vary depending on the relationship you have.

Once you have a close relationship, you may address younger family members by their name, or if they have children, it’s very common to address them as ‘so and so’s dad or mom.’ So if your wife’s younger brother has a son called 진수 [Jinsu], then we may call him 진수 아빠 (Jinsu’s dad) and his wife 진수 엄마 (Jinsu’s mom). This way of addressing someone is extremely common, whether they are part of your family or not.

Next, let’s take a look at the titles used for the wife’s side of the family.

Sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law

Another set of family titles are the ones we use to refer to our sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law.

As with other family titles, for in-laws, you have to use the family titles when addressing older family members, but it can vary when addressing younger family members depending on how close your relationship is.

Korean family wrapup

Family life is an extremely important part of Korean culture, and this means that talking about family is one of the most common and popular topics. Therefore, it’s important to learn different titles for different family members, and as we have seen in this article, there are a lot of different titles for families in Korean.

One thing to keep in mind is that even some Koreans forget the titles for less common relationships. We ask our parents what titles to use, or we may even look up the correct title on Naver. So if you don’t remember all the different family titles we have seen in this article, don’t worry – you can always use this article as a point of reference.

The best way to practice is to focus on just a few Korean family words, starting with the ones you are most likely to use. Once you’ve mastered those, you’ll be ready to add more, little by little.