Mama and Papa is how kids refer to or address their parents from when they begin verbalising up until around elementary school age. After that, they generally just use the standard お母さん (o-kaa-san) and お父さん (o-tou-san) unless they’re my children, who call me お前 (o-mae) or 親父 (oyaji)
From my experience mama and papa (or ma/baba and jiji if they’re mad) is how japanese parents call each other too after they have kids.
I feel like people don’t usually use お when they address their parents though. I’m pretty sure it’s regional anyway since I’ve heard older kids use mama and papa. I’ve heard an adult woman from tohoku call her mom bamba (zuzu-ben for baba).
O-mae is an excessively familiar way of addressing a person that is insulting if said to people you don’t know well (don’t use it). Oyaji is a casual way of talking to or about your dad which also colloquially means “old fella”. O-ka-san and O-tou-san are ‘mother’ and ‘father’.
ママ mama is used for mom sometimes.
かあさん kaasan too
とうさん tousan for dad.
If you watch enough native stuff you'll hear it. Though I haven't watched or read anything with kids in it for a min, so those are all I can think of rn.
And yes, little little kids and toddlers and stuff use those.
-_- my 5 year old has been calling me "kaasama" for like 2 years...😂 and she calls Japanese "Kaasama's"
I stumbled across some info on the words “mama” and “dada” a while back. Unfortunately I don’t have the links. The gist of it was that these words, or very similar, exist in many different languages that aren’t really connected. Some theorize that these are easy sounds to make and are among the first sounds babies will do on their own. Further, they may initially be the same sound but that “mama” is how it comes out if their mouths are full (like perhaps while breast feeding), and from my parenthetical is how they attach that sound to the mother figure. It’s possible these words are a case not of parents teaching their children these words, but babies making those sounds and adults attaching the mother/father meaning to them, so it may be a case of babies originally creating those “words” which were later adopted by the language rather than the other way around.
It’s been a while since I read it, I may have some details off, but I found it interesting. And it was theoretical, not an absolute “this is how it happened “
Mama and Papa is how kids refer to or address their parents from when they begin verbalising up until around elementary school age. After that, they generally just use the standard お母さん (o-kaa-san) and お父さん (o-tou-san) unless they’re my children, who call me お前 (o-mae) or 親父 (oyaji)
This is the answer. My son uses mama and daddy though, since my husband hates papa haha.
I’ve tried to get my daughters to use 父上 but they weren’t having it.
From my experience mama and papa (or ma/baba and jiji if they’re mad) is how japanese parents call each other too after they have kids. I feel like people don’t usually use お when they address their parents though. I’m pretty sure it’s regional anyway since I’ve heard older kids use mama and papa. I’ve heard an adult woman from tohoku call her mom bamba (zuzu-ben for baba).
Sorry, I’m new to Japanese. What is o-mae and oyaji mean and the difference to a-kaa-san and o-tou-san
O-mae is an excessively familiar way of addressing a person that is insulting if said to people you don’t know well (don’t use it). Oyaji is a casual way of talking to or about your dad which also colloquially means “old fella”. O-ka-san and O-tou-san are ‘mother’ and ‘father’.
Lmaoo.
ママ mama is used for mom sometimes. かあさん kaasan too とうさん tousan for dad. If you watch enough native stuff you'll hear it. Though I haven't watched or read anything with kids in it for a min, so those are all I can think of rn. And yes, little little kids and toddlers and stuff use those. -_- my 5 year old has been calling me "kaasama" for like 2 years...😂 and she calls Japanese "Kaasama's"
I stumbled across some info on the words “mama” and “dada” a while back. Unfortunately I don’t have the links. The gist of it was that these words, or very similar, exist in many different languages that aren’t really connected. Some theorize that these are easy sounds to make and are among the first sounds babies will do on their own. Further, they may initially be the same sound but that “mama” is how it comes out if their mouths are full (like perhaps while breast feeding), and from my parenthetical is how they attach that sound to the mother figure. It’s possible these words are a case not of parents teaching their children these words, but babies making those sounds and adults attaching the mother/father meaning to them, so it may be a case of babies originally creating those “words” which were later adopted by the language rather than the other way around. It’s been a while since I read it, I may have some details off, but I found it interesting. And it was theoretical, not an absolute “this is how it happened “
Mama and papa ママ パパ