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"Younger" or "Older" Brother or Sister
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Since I described "my younger daughter" instead of "my daughter" in my previous entry, one of my Lang-8 friends made comments as follows.
"Since we don't have specific words "妹" in English, we don't say "younger" or "older" brother or sister as often as Japanese do. It would actually sound offensive if you said "my older brother" a lot since it would emphasize that he is old."
Actually, I've never thought of it before. It's true that Japanese people pay much attention who is older and who is younger. Time to time, they change their words or attitude when they talk to a person who is older than they.
I have a big brother who is one year older than I. We are almost same age but I've never called him by his first name. I've called him by "兄ちゃん (an elder brother)". On the other hand, he has called me by my first name. Nowadays, there are no such strict rules. My daughters call each other by their first names.
Still, social norms that you should respect elder people exist here in Japan, on the contrary I found out that people in Western countries don't pay much attention to their age.
"Since we don't have specific words "妹" in English, we don't say "younger" or "older" brother or sister as often as Japanese do. It would actually sound offensive if you said "my older brother" a lot since it would emphasize that he is old."
Actually, I've never thought of it before. It's true that Japanese people pay much attention who is older and who is younger. Time to time, they change their words or attitude when they talk to a person who is older than they.
I have a big brother who is one year older than I. We are almost same age but I've never called him by his first name. I've called him by "兄ちゃん (an elder brother)". On the other hand, he has called me by my first name. Nowadays, there are no such strict rules. My daughters call each other by their first names.
Still, social norms that you should respect elder people exist here in Japan, on the contrary I found out that people in Western countries don't pay much attention to their age.
前回のエントリーで私は、 “my daughter" ではなく "my younger daughter" と記述したので Lang-8の友人が以下のコメントを書いてくれた。
「英語には”妹” というような特別な単語がないので日本人が使うほど頻繁に ”younger brother/ sister” または "older brother/sister" という言い方をしません。”my older brother” を必要以上に使うと年を取っていることを強調することになり相手に嫌な思いをさせたりします。」
私はこれまで一度もこのようなことを考えたことはなかった。確かに日本人は誰が年上で、誰が年下かを気にする。自分よりも相手が年上だったら言葉や態度を変えたりする。
私は一歳年上の兄がいる。ほとんど同じ年だが私は兄を名前で呼んだことは一度もない。今までずっと「兄ちゃん（an older brother）」と呼んできた。だが兄は私を名前で呼ぶ。今ではそのような厳格なきまりはない。私の二人の娘はお互いを名前で呼び合っている。
日本では「年上の人を敬う」という社会規範は今も存在するが、西洋の国では年齢を日本ほど気にしないと言うことが分かった。
「英語には”妹” というような特別な単語がないので日本人が使うほど頻繁に ”younger brother/ sister” または "older brother/sister" という言い方をしません。”my older brother” を必要以上に使うと年を取っていることを強調することになり相手に嫌な思いをさせたりします。」
私はこれまで一度もこのようなことを考えたことはなかった。確かに日本人は誰が年上で、誰が年下かを気にする。自分よりも相手が年上だったら言葉や態度を変えたりする。
私は一歳年上の兄がいる。ほとんど同じ年だが私は兄を名前で呼んだことは一度もない。今までずっと「兄ちゃん（an older brother）」と呼んできた。だが兄は私を名前で呼ぶ。今ではそのような厳格なきまりはない。私の二人の娘はお互いを名前で呼び合っている。
日本では「年上の人を敬う」という社会規範は今も存在するが、西洋の国では年齢を日本ほど気にしないと言うことが分かった。
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面白いですね。
うちの子供たちも、みんな名前で呼び合います。女の子が一番上なのですが、６つも下の息子も、彼女のことを、名前で呼びます。上の二人の兄に対しても名前で呼びます。私は、それに違和感を抱いたことは一度もないのですが。
でも、older って年をとったという意味ではなと思うのに、なぜそんなことを思うのか不思議ですね。
Examples: Oldest sister, youngest brother, second oldest brother,[ My mother's youngest sister. This implies that your mother has two or more sisters. If your mother had only one sister and she was younger than your mother, you would just say " sister". ]
If you have two or more daughters I would consider "youngest daughter" to be correct.
In my opinion this is not impolite in my version of English.
If "ordinal number" is not used it is very difficult to identify a certain relative's relationship to you.
@ Blue Thank you for your explanation. It's seems for me that your English is slightly different from American English. Is it OK to consider it as an Australian or British English?
I consider "ordinal number" {position in group} to be the same in both versions of English. There may be differences in usage, but they would be much the same.
When we talk about our family, siblings, children, grandchildren son-in laws/ daughter-in-laws, we would use their "first names".
This can also become complicated, because some families pass on the same names to their children.
I know a family that had four {living} generations using the same first, second and family names, of the oldest male members of each generation.
I also have friends with two married children .{one daughter one son}. Both the son, and the son-in-law have the same first name.
Thank you so much for your detailed explanation.
When I first read your comments, I felt a little strange to see "ordinal number". Now I got a simple reason. The number of an only child is increasing, and three children in a family is very rare in Japan, so we seldom use the ordinal number to identify relatives.
@Vermillion
Looking forward to reading your new entry!
I also read : That diapers for the aged are outselling diapers for babies in Japan.
\
It may be only Western propaganda.
When you are talking about your two daughters, it's perfectly okay to say "my younger daughter" or "my older daughter". Lots of my friends do it.
Also, it's quite all right to talk about your "younger brother" or your "kid brother". Many people in the US do that (I don't know about Canada, the UK or elsewhere).
I really could not relate to the comment that someone else left in your other entry, because in the part of the US where I live, those words "younger X" and sometimes "older X" are used often :)
Thank you so much for your explanation.
When I write English, I was obsessed to translate "兄"、"弟"、"姉"、"妹" into English all the time. That's the reason why I used those words very quite often. ^^
I see nothing wrong with that, especially when I can never remember the name of her sons :-)
Because I used "my younger daughter" instead of "my daughter" in my previous entry, one of my Lang-8 friends made the following comments:
I would recommend "a previous" or "my last." I'm not sure why "my previous" doesn't sound right to me, though.
"Since we don't have specific words like '妹' in English, we don't say "younger" or "older" brother or sister as often as Japanese do.
It would actually sound offensive if you said "my older brother" a lot, since it would emphasize that he is old."
It's true that Japanese people pay a lot of attention to who is older and who is younger.
From time to time, they change their words or attitude when they talk to a person who is older than they.
We are almost the same age, but I've never called him by his first name.
Still, social norms that you should respect elder people exist here in Japan, whereas I have found out that people in Western countries don't pay much attention to their age.
"On the contrary" isn't used like this, but I'm having a hard time thinking of how to describe when it is used...
I agree with the other people who commented. I don't think it would be considered offensive to use "my older brother" too much. You wouldn't when talking to them or when talking to people who knew him (you'd use his name or nickname in such cases), but to people who didn't know him, "my older brother" would be fine.
(I use "one of my younger brothers" fairly often when speaking to friends.)
It was fun and nice to hear other peoples' and your opinion. :)
"Since we don't have specific words like '妹' in English, we don't say 'younger' or 'older' brother or sister as often as Japanese do.
Since the quotes are inside a quote, single quotes are used instead of double quotes.
It would actually sound offensive if you said 'my older brother' a lot, since it would emphasize that he is old."
Fixing some double quotes that should've been single quotes in my first correction.
Yes, that's quite right - you only would use 'older' or 'younger' brother, sister or child if you needed to tell which brother or child it was, and the listener knew that you had other brothers and sisters or children. You would not use the 'older' after you had told them which one it was - you'd only use the 'older' once during the conversation unless the topic changed to another child.
If you went to a toy shop in Japan, you'd say "I'd like a toy for my older son" because the word for older son exists in Japanese, but in an English speaking country, you'd only say "my son", because if you said "older son" the clerk would think you meant "older" as in he's maybe thirteen or something.
I'd never introduce my sister as "my older sister", for the reasons I mentioned.
Yeah, that guy was talking shit.
I always say older/younger when referring to family members. If someone else doesn't know them by name you need to tell them a general description.
And western society is age-conscious, but only for job discrimination purposes ... too old or too young. Younger than 22 too young, older than 50 too old to start work.
It's nothing wrong to say older/younger when referring to family members, but I used to think that I had to translate "兄"、"弟"、"姉"、"妹" into English all the time.
It takes a lot of energy to make the distinction so most of the time we don't say 'younger' or 'older.'
It is just like when speaking of animals, we don't usually care about their gender, so while we can say 'he' or 'she' to talk about dogs, 'it' is very common as well.
Ummm... It might be so.
When I said "my younger daughter" instead of "my daughter" in my previous entry, one of my Lang-8 friends made comments as follows.
"Since we don't have gender specific words, such as "妹", in English, we don't say "younger" or "older" brother, or sister, as often as Japanese do.
It's true that Japanese people pay much attention to who is older and who is younger.
I have a big brother who is one year older than me.
"Than" can be a preposition or a conjunction. In this case, "than" is a preposition so you need write "me" instead of "I.
"... one year older than I am." <-- also correct
We are almost the same age, but I've never called him by his first name.
Always place a comma before the conjunction in a compound sentence.
The social norm that you should respect elder people still exists here in Japan, while to the contrary I found out that people in Western countries don't pay much attention to their age.
"Still" modifies "exists", so placing it next to "exists" sounds much better.
Using a "second person" pronoun is a bad writing style.
"... that you should respect ..." <--- bad style
"... that one should respect ..." <--- good style
In my opinion, "old" has a very different meaning than "older" or "oldest".
>"old" has a very different meaning than "older" or "oldest".
You mean, you draw a conclusion?
(1) what is the set of items?
(2) what does "old" mean?
"old" does not have any meaning regarding sets.
"older" has a set of exactly two items.
"oldest" has a set of three, or more, items.
___the real meaning of "old" disappears__
"I can be older than you. However, we can both be young."
comparative and superlative adjectives have special meanings:
(1) think about the set.
(2) think about the meaning of the adjective.
I noticed that comment on your last journal and disagreed, but I didn't say anything out of respect for his opinion.
When you say "younger daughter", you are specifying which of two daughters you're speaking about. This tells me not only that you are speaking about the younger one, but also that there are exactly two of them. If there are three, you might say "oldest," "middle," and "youngest" daughter. With four or more daughters things start to get messy.
That information may have been unnecessary in your last post, but it was far from rude or incorrect.
"Older/oldest" and "younger/youngest" are commonly used when speaking about siblings, as many people here have noted. It is usually affectionate, and I can't really think of an instance where it would be derogatory to refer to them as such. Children (and some adults) often use the words "big" sister and "little" brother, or possibly "kid" sister, especially when there is a big age difference.
Though, like others have said, if you and the listener both know of the person, you would just use their first name.
Thank you for your frank opinion. I agree. It has been unnecessary.
>the words "big" sister and "little" brother, or possibly "kid" sister,
I like these expressions. It sounds more affectionate, since "little" connotes pretty, right?
The way it seems to me is that it's more common to just say "brother" or "sister".
Usually we won't specify if they are older or younger unless you have one of each.
Usually if you are talking to a close friend you already know about their siblings.
For example if I had an older brother and a younger brother, I may want to specify which one I'm talking about when I tell a story.
Though it's still not uncommon to just say "brother" and have the listener figure out which one by the context of the sentence, or ask for clarification if they are unsure of which one it is.
Since I've read many good comments including yours, I fully understood how to use these words.
I'll be able to be a fluent English speaker before long! :D
Whoever told you that told you complete rubbish in my opinion :P
I have three sisters. I call them my older sisters because when I say I have three everyone assumes that odds are at least one would be younger than me.
But no I have three older sisters
They do not care one bit if I call them older sisters as would any
HOWEVER: it might be a bit mean for me to call the eldest one "You are my oldest sister" because... women don't like being told they are old.
There is a difference between me saying "I have three older sisters" and saying "she is my oldest sister."
In colloquializations however we tend to say big brother or little brother.
I call my younger brother a variety of names... depends how I am feeling. Here are a few "Chumly, chugs, squish, Pug, Monkey, Pascragas, Skullduggens, Dark Lord Chuckles the Silly Piggy... etc etc."
It's awful. There's a HUGE difference. Nobody wants to be an oldest sister.
>In colloquializations however we tend to say big brother or little brother.
"Little sister" sounds pretty, but "Big sister" sounds scary, isn't it?
Please stop calling your brother a variety of names. I feel very sorry for your brother. ><
Its like you are proud of her.
Haha he likes it.
No problem with saying "younger/older sibling" out here as far as I know.