JJapanese

What do you usually call a friend’s mom in Japanese?

Is it normal to call them “mom” as well? Or is that reserved for what you call your partner’s mom when you’re dating?

What’s the culture around this?

1 comment

  1. Until I was mid teen, おばちゃん was standard, like 田中くんのおばちゃん, whether I was just talking about her without her being present at there, or if I’m directly talking to her. かあちゃん can replace that too. But I think these matters differs depending on where you’re from and of what generation. Older ones used to use おふくろ a lot more, but it’s not used very often in my generation (was born in 80’s).

    Now that I’m grown up, unless I’m very close to them, I think I’d go for rather formal-ish tone like 田中くんのお母さん.
    If you want more input from native then I’ll sure r/AskAJapanese or r/ja (the latter is only for the post in Japanese though) can give you a few more.

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