I’ve always tried to come up with ways to remember the many Korean words for relationships between family members (mother’s sister, father’s sister’s husband, etc.). Unlike English, there’s a separate word for just about every position in the family tree (including different words depending on if their on the mother’s or father’s side).
I finally learned why uncles are called 삼촌 and male cousins are 사촌. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before, but the first characters are the number of family members between you and them. To get to the uncle, it’s you -> father -> them (three steps = 삼). To get to the cousin, it’s you -> father -> brother -> son (four steps = 사). Although I’ve never heard it before, you can keep on going at least one more step (오촌 is the cousin’s son).
제가 한자 너무 좋아해요 ^^.
