My 오빠 from another 어마! (Korean kinship terms)
Monday, September 15th, 2008Kinship terms.
It’s kind of hard to translate the concept literally but these titles are used quite frequently in Korean. Actually, here’s a great lesson on just that.
English can be quite direct at times. Whether that is a good or bad thing, indirectness is more favored in Korean. In English, we like to use names to be polite whereas Koreans prefer the use of titles like 선생님. Certainly there are times when Korean can express some of the most direct concepts possible, but on the whole, Korean functions in an indirect manner most of the time.
One such way to be indirect is the widespread use of kinship terms. Here’s a brief breakdown of a few select terms based on gender:
These four terms are used widely and are quite important. In my case, they were particularly hard to adopt. Not from a pronunciation standpoint but from their implications. For example, I actually have two older brothers. Like for-real brothers. So, when I called someone 형, it felt a little unnatural at first. Like, dude, you’re not my brother. I have two of them and you don’t look like them. All you did was help me find some 만두 at the grocery - so why exactly am I calling you “brother”?
Well, that’s the thing - the titles do have a place in the household in the literal sense. So if a younger sister is talking to her older brother, she will call him 오빠. No qualms with that. Actually, she will likely call her older male cousin 오빠 also. Again, no problem there. But what exactly does she call her boyfriend that is older than her? Oh man - you guessed it. 오빠. Here’s where the lines get fuzzy. No, she isn’t thinking of him like that but she is calling him the English equivalent of “older brother”. So who is the sick one? The 외국인 who over-analyzes the meaning or the Korean girl who has some issues that would make even Freud wince? Sorry guys, this time the 90 pound Korean girl wins…but I’ll be back.
She calls him this title out of respect. When she does, not only does his heart melt (anyone willing to fess up on this?) but he takes on the role of a protective older brother - a role where he is expected to take care of her, be kind to her, and (typically) buy her things. Sounds like a sweet deal, but what if they aren’t boyfriend/girlfriend? What if they are just friends? Same name applies. There are some boyfriend/girlfriend specific titles such as 차기야 (think honey) but kinship and lovey-dovey terms aren’t exclusive like they are in English.
So let’s flip the roles. I’ll take a chapter from my own book and paste it here.
Many of my Korean friends are women that are older than me. So, I call each of them 누나. I have been told that this title (much like 오빠, 형, and 언니) places the older person in the relationship in a particular role. Sometimes this role is desired - I have one friend that likes to be nice to me - she buys me sweets, food, drinks - pretty much whenever I show interest. I get a free meal and she gets the gratification of helping me out - she feels useful and kind. It’s a way for her to show appropriate affection. I know it’s a hard line to translate but this type of friendship is very common among Koreans. Frankly, if she were American, there would be only one way to interpret her actions. Among Koreans, it’s not the same.
But what if the older person doesn’t want to spoil the 동생 rotten? What if he or she has enough already and their plate and doesn’t have time to be pampering someone? That’s when age plays a decisively important role. In this scenario, one would seek out people of the same age - most commonly former classmates (all the way back as elementary and middle school!) as equal-level friends. In this relationship, the two friends can “go Dutch” and split the costs and responsibilities down the middle.
So pretend you are introducing yourself to someone new. When you ask their age, everyone is taking mental notes. Almost like mental friend-shopping. When the answer is desirable (pretend I want an older brother-type to show me around a new city) I immediately strike up conversations with him in hopes that he will help me out. But if he’s younger than me, maybe I’ll think (well he seems alright but I’ve got plenty of 동생 already) and be done with it.
So what if I “take on” a new 남동생? I know he will call me 형 but what will I call him? By his given name with a nice little /야/ at the end for flair 
. If his name is 성주 he would be called 성주야 but if his name has a final consonant (받침) then simply add an /아/ such as 유빈아.
I can say with certainty that only a small fraction of this type of profiling exists in America. By and large, it is uniquely Korean. It is an echo originating from Confucianism that demands strong importance on social hierarchy. This clashes with the American sense of equality and fairness. In the states, I can talk to anyone I want and make friends with whomever I want with only a few taboo rules in place. In Korean, the lines of terms are very clear - if they are older than you, you must call them this. When things work out, it is a well oiled machine. When things get out of whack, it’s upsetting. Best advice is always play it safe and always play it polite with Koreans.
Pretend you are a male in your 20s and you are shopping in a department store and spot a shirt that looks nice. If you want to find out more about it (or to haggle) the best way to get the male store clerk’s attention is to respect him by calling him 형. If you’re quite a bit older than the store clerk, then the rules change…but not always…
It may seem daunting at first considering that age isn’t always a determining factor in kinship terms.
For example, I had the pleasure to be university classmates with a feisty Japanese woman (and fellow KC101 student!) that is quite a bit older than me but certainly still winning over hearts of young men from all over the world (치요카누나 - remember me kindly 
) Even though there existed a clear age difference, it was impolite to refer to her as 아주머니 - a polite title that I would have used had I met her outside of the university in a “normal” setting. But since we were both university students in the same level course, we were in the same social class - so in that case, she became my 누나 - a title that made me very comfortable and probably helped me feel that much closer to her. So in that case, age didn’t matter as much as class . Granted, this isn’t a super-common scenario but it was a real-life scenario that we must be aware of.
Thoughts?
Posted by Matthew in How Koreans Do It |
September 15th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Where I’m from the thought of people being equal is really strong, too, so this system is really foreign me. It was glaringly obvious from my first meeting with Korean that there was a complex system; it’s not without reason that the first words I learnt were “형,” “오빠,” “누나,” “언니,” and “동생.” It’s extremely hard for me to know when a term is appropriate, so I suppose I’d have to ask people what to call them and what not. On the whole, I don’t really have a problem with these terms as I accept that it’s just the way it’s done. There is one exception, though, “오빠,” which I abhor. Perhaps I’m putting more into the term than what it warrants (I’m not thinking about the original meaning “older brother for a girl”). I’ve thus far avoided using it — not being in Korea does have its perks. hehe
And I’m a go-Dutch type of person… XD
September 15th, 2008 at 7:47 am
This isn’t so unusual for me, having grown up in a Filipino American household. And we also have kin terms for older vs younger siblings used in a similar manner (but not as finely distinguished by sex as the Korean system is) - ate/kaka for ‘older sister’; kuya for ‘older brother’; aling/ading for younger folks. We didn’t use this in our family (yeah, we’re weird like that), but we knew a lot of other families who did.
The one important thing is that we called all our older neighbors “auntie” and “uncle”, whether they were truly related or not.
September 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
ㅎㅎㅎOnce again, this was quite a entertaining entry “By his given name with a nice little /야/ at the end for flair ” ㅋㅋㅋ That cracked me up!
I haven’t got a chance to really use these kinships but I do try to call my sister 언니 from time to time. Hmm, I wonder if she feels any differently toward me when I call her that….I wish =]
September 15th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
The terms don’t seem so weird to me, but I always feel quite awkward when using them to address Korean people. I’m very aware of “hey, I’m not Korean … what if they don’t want me calling them this? What if they’ll feel offended by a foreigner calling them this?”, and yet I also feel a bit too awkward to ask “Hey, is it okay if I call you this?”
Most of my friends are younger than me (I’m 24, the majority of my friends range between 19-22), but I feel like I’m sort of on the same level, mentally and in life, as they are, so I would feel quite awkward if any of them called me 언니 in seriousness. I just don’t feel older than they are, I feel like we’re the same age group even if we aren’t.
I have a handful of older friends though and amongst them there is one that I call 언니. She isn’t Korean, but has been living and working there for a few years now. She is doing what I want to eventually be able to do. I really look up to her and admire her, and it seemed pretty natural for me to call her 언니. She invokes in me the feeling that I think an 언니 should invoke; someone that I admire, look up to, respect, love, and want to be some day. Someone that will guide me and advise me and support me with her experience. She is to me what I try to be to my two younger adopted sisters. On the flip side, I have another friend the same age as the one I call 언니, and yet I wouldn’t ever really consider calling this other friend 언니. She might be older, but I feel she’s on the same level as I am - I guess I feel towards her the same way my younger friends feel towards me. Not disrepectful, as such, just this feeling of “we’re at the same stage of life”.
Maybe that in itself can be seen as disrepectful, I don’t know XD
September 15th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
It seem that in many Asian countries, such kinship terms are quite commonly used, not only within the family, but also to complete strangers on the street. In Singapore, we call anyone who’s about your dad/mum’s age “uncle” or “auntie”; in the playground, you always hear parents saying to their little ones, “give way to younger brother/sister” or “see that older brother/sister over there?” when referring to totally unrelated strangers.
So this Korean practice is not strange to me. But I do find it strange that Koreans take the age difference very seriously, even if it’s, say, 2 years’ difference only. There was a thread in the forum about this…
September 16th, 2008 at 9:27 am
I think some Koreans overlook these rules when dealing with foreigners, since they know we don’t have the older/younger brother/sister kinship titles in English. I befriended a Korean young man who was a few years younger than me, and spoke very little English, but he always called me by name, never 형. I called him by his name, too, rather than 동생.
But, as Matthew said, it’s definitely best to be overly polite when speaking Korean with Koreans. So, I probably could’ve called him his name with the 아/야 at the end, but I decided to be safe and just call him by his name– sometimes even with 씨 afterwards. He may have thought I was being overly polite, but I really wanted to be careful.
I’ve seen one too many foreigner in Korea use impolite forms in Korean, only to say “oh, they know I’m a foreigner, they don’t care,” when I can clearly tell the Korean was a little taken aback at the impolite form of the language.
September 16th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Daniel - talk about hitting the nail on the head - I completely hear you. We are foreigners and Koreans most generally know that kinship terms (among other things) aren’t used on us. So when we are called by our names (somewhat directly) it is easy to assume that our version of 반말 unintentionally ends up becoming so rude - but hey - we still try to play the 외국인 card, right?
Wrong in my opinion. However, I am guilty of letting my politeness slip due to how comfortable I am. I have unintentionally offended people before by dropping the -씨 suffix too early or just assuming that it was okayto use 반말 when clearly the relationship wasn’t at that level yet.
But really though, the more one speaks the language, the more he/she is held by the norms of the language. Meaning, if we want to speak Korean (like for real - not just to get by) then we need to match the politeness levels and use of titles. In this scenario, I agree with Daniel - play it safe.
September 16th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Hi this is my first time visiting this blog and I was really surpirsed by this post.
Being a korean and using korean for most of my life, I thought all these terms like 언니 and 오빠 were just right to me.
I wonder why chriss hates 오빠 so much. Korean men love it when they are called like that. I think these terms are very important, but when we’re talking about foramlity, these terms are not right. using 씨 at the end of peoples names is right and polite enough. You shoulden’t use 형, 누나 terms if you have a difficulty with the person. kinship terms are great when you’re talking to your friends but other than that, you should use 씨 unless you’re a teenager.
September 17th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Well said Rosa!
Well I can’t speak for anyone else, I imagine why some people dislike terms like 오빠 and the like are likely due to a different interpretation of the meaning of the word. “Brother” sounds kind of creepy to non-family to some people while others look at it more like the words “honey” or “sweetie” which implies that the girl is romantically interested in the older guy - which of course isn’t necessarily implied.
Yeah I won’t lie - when a girl calls me 오빠 I can’t help but want to help her or do something nice. But truthfully, it’s the same thing for 형 - I just feel somewhat responsible. It sounds embarrassing to spell it out in English, though…
September 17th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
I have been called 오빠 a couple times, and yes it has a very powerful effect. I like the term you used “melting”. yeah that explains it.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:18 am
This became a mini-essay…
So I’ve been thinking about why I don’t like to use the word ” 오빠,” and no, it has absolutely nothing to do with its literal meaning ”brother” or its use as ”honey.”
Xinran asked Chinese men what being a good woman entailed. Three of the five requirements were “1) never go out and express her view to society 2) provide a son for her husband’s family tree (3 never lose her temper and always smile at her men.” (1) I think that point 2 expresses that men are more valuable than women. For points 1 and 3 to be possible, a woman has to be obedient to men, because she is not allowed to say her opinion in public and she’s not allowed to say her opinion in a man’s presence. Then for her to be able to express any kind of opinion, she will either have to give a man’s opinion or don’t say anything at all. Point 1 and 3 were also required by Western men, but differences in wages between women and men suggest that men are more valuable in the West.
When men say that they “melt” when a woman calls them “오빠,” it suggest that she must be doing something right to be considered a ”good woman,” and men are disposed to treating her well. And it’s here that we should never underestimate the power of language. It’s not without reason that feminists and other theorists (see for instance Judith Butler, Monique Wittig, Luce Irigiray, Elaine Showalter, Simone de Bevouir etc) spend pages discussing terminology. “오빠” can be considered a way of “smiling” to a man, because it is not merely a respectful term used to an older person, who is more specifically a man. But it designates her as a woman. Thus she does not simply place the man higher up in the age hierarchy, she is also placing him higher up in a gender hierarchy.
1) Xinran: “Is There Any Woman on Earth Who Could Meet the Five Male Reuirements of a Good Woman” in What the Chinese Don’t Eat pp. 15-18 London, Vintage, 2006
^ ^
September 19th, 2008 at 4:04 am
Chriss:
I completely understand where you’re coming from and can definitely see your point, but somehow I just still don’t see “오빠” in a bad kind of light.
I can definitely agree that it does put him higher in the age hierarchy as well as the “gender hierarchy” - but then I have to say well, is that such a bad thing? (call me old fashioned, but even though I generally end up finding myself dating men who expect me to be their mother, I really like guys who’ll take care of me, protect me, pay for stuff, etc XD;; )
I see all the terms a bit like this: each of them bring some kind of ideal to mind. For 오빠, its the nice guy who will look out for the younger girl. For 형 its the man who watches the younger man’s back, helps him out, acts like a younger father in some ways. 누나 … okay, no idea how guys see their 누나s, perhaps the older woman that they can get advice from? 언니, the big sister who will help the younger woman out, give her advice and support.
I see nothing negative or de-powering about any of those.
Obviously not everyone is going to hold themselves to that ideal, and not everyone is going to have the same ideal in mind.
But several times now I’ve seen people mentioning that being called 오빠 or 형 makes them melt or gives them some sort of sense of responsibility. So can that really be seen as a bad thing?
And then again maybe we both see it completely different, being Westerners, with really nothing in our culture that is quite comparable to this.
September 21st, 2008 at 9:06 am
I think it has to do more with the hundreds of hours of dramas I have watched over the years, I don’t look down on anyone and frankly, I find the accusation disturbing.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:36 am
Taliana:
Of course, I am a product of the culture I was raised in and of my studies etc. I personally don’t reckognise that men should have any higher status.
I’m not denying that the words can be seen as ideals and have positive sides; words and concepts are always difficult and many facetted.
John:
I’m sorry you feel that way. It is not intended as a personal criticism; it’s simply an explanation of how I view the word itself in response to Taliana’s indirect question.
September 24th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Chriss: I too was raised to view men and women as equals, but still to me, recognising someone as “a man who is older than me” is not putting me down in any way, shape or form. While men vs women is indeed a cultural thing, I personally don’t feel that mere kinship terms can honestly convey the same cultural qualities. They are neutral, in their bare form. It’s how and when and who they are used by that, in my opinion, gives them their “flavour” or “colour”, making them into something that is either positive, or negative.
But still, if calling someone 누나 isn’t seen as disempowering, then I see no reason why calling someone 오빠 should be either.
I wonder if my point is clear XD; probably not.
I’m finding this interesting though!
September 24th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
The weirdest situation I had was when I turned from 오빠 to 동생 in one day to the same person, namely the older sister of my wife who is younger than me.
She used to call me 오빠 because I was older, and I was just “a guy older than her”, with no other ties. Then when I got married, I was no longer “with no ties” but I was “tied” to her younger sister! And since she is her 동생, I turned 동생 as well. Of course, she never called me like that, just by my name and since “Erich-a” sounds weird, it’s just Erich. But she would never call me 오빠 any more…
January 6th, 2009 at 5:40 am
[…] So to sum up, I don’t know why Koreans do the funky chicken when it comes to recording age. What I do know is that age plays an important role in initiating and maintaining friendships. Social age is likely more important that chronological age in Korea, so I can appreciate the idea of everyone “aging” all at the same time. And truth be told, I do like to hear that even some Koreans find their system daunting. Solution? Ask what year you were born and just gauge from there. If the person responds in the same year, you guys are 동갑. Call it a day - the year is the most important. Even I can grasp that 그럼, 몇년생이세요? […]
October 6th, 2009 at 5:37 am
[…] additional notes: If a man has two 누나s, the first one is his 첫째 누나 and the second oldest one would be his 둘째 누나. Also, since we call anybody 오빠/누나/언니/형/동생 if you want to emphasize it’s your real, blood-related 오빠/언니/누나/형/동생 we sometimes put 친 in front of the title. For example, 친형 and 친누나. For more insight on the confusing kinship terms, you know where to look. […]
October 12th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Just a note: it is 받침, not 바침.