姉妹 – How to say Sister in Japanese
There is a few ways to talk about your sister in Japanese. Japanese differentiates between your older sister, younger sister, and even between other people’s sisters. Let’s take a look.
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How to say Big Sister in Japanese?
A very common word and that you may hear often in Anime or other Japanese shows is お姉さん. This is big sister or older sister in Japanese. 姉 is also older sister in Japanese when talking about your own sister. おねえさん is also said for one’s own older sister in different contexts though. If you are interested I go more into detail about it below:
How to say Little Sister in Japanese?
妹 is little sister in Japanese. When you are talking about your own sister you would say 妹. If you are talking about someone else’s sister you also say 妹 or 妹さん. 妹さん is the polite form of 妹 since you are adding さん.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/What do I say for just Sister?
If you want to talk about just a sister without worrying if they are older or younger you can say 姉妹. You can see actually that this word uses both the characters for older and younger sister. Actually there is another word which is 兄弟 which refers to brothers. It is the equivalent of 姉妹 for brothers but 兄弟 can also be used to refer to siblings in general. So that could be sisters, brothers, or brothers and sisters.
Sisters in Order
Japanese also gives you the ability to talk about sisters by the order of birth. So, if you want to say the eldest brother, that would be 長女. The second-born would then be 次女 followed by the third, 三女.
