Question

Jack

Dec. 12, 2021

Question:
How do native English speakers address 大表姐 and 大表妹 in English?
大表妹 means she is younger than you, but she is the oldest among your young female cousins.
大表姐 means she is not only older than you, but also is the oldest among your old female cousins.
I checked that on some translation apps, they only say “oldest cousin” or “big cousin”

en 2

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Corrections

Faizyrooma4

Question

Question:

How do native English speakers address 大表姐 and 大表妹 in English?

大表妹 means she is younger than you, but she is the oldest among your young female cousins.

大表姐 means she is not only older than you, but also is the oldest among your old female cousins.

I checked that on some translation apps, they only say “oldest cousin” or “big cousin”

Feedback

No differentiation is normally made in English, we just say "cousin", or as you said, "oldest cousin"/"big cousin". It's not seen as culturally important in most places where English is spoken. A bit unrelated, but in Pakistan where I'm from, we also have many many words for different family members, and sometimes I also find it hard to believe that they have no words for many of these things in English lol.

Jack

Dec. 13, 2021

Thank you, my Pakistani friend. Thank you for all your detailed explanations.

lievemealone

Question

Question:

How do native English speakers address 大表姐 and 大表妹 in English?

大表妹 means she is younger than you, but she is the oldest among your young female cousins.

大表姐 means she is not only older than you, but also is the oldest among your old female cousins.

I checked that on some translation apps, they only say “oldest cousin” or “big cousin”

Feedback

When talking directly to cousins, we usually just say their name. But if we're talking about them to someone else, usually we'll just say "cousin". English words for family members don't really specify age or gender, so usually you'll have to look at context. For example, if I'm talking about one of my cousins, you would know my cousin is a woman because I use "she" or "her" when talking about her. It feels a little unnatural to say "my female/male cousin" in English. Also, in my experience, I rarely say "older/younger cousin", mostly because my cousin's age isn't important to what I'm saying most of the time.

Jack

Dec. 13, 2021

Thank you for these detailed explanations. The cultural difference is really huge. As a Chinese person, I can’t even accept it.

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