Okaasan Vs. Haha

i dont get it! T_T am i 2 dumb 2 know anything in this world!!*crys*

Okay. I just got this fully explained to me. So let see, If talking to your mother your say okaasan, because it is repectful(?that may not be the right word). But when talking to other people about your mother you say 'haha' because it is a hummble term. If you were to refer to your mother as okaasan it's like your showing off your mother and saying she's better than the other mothers.

Then when you talk about other people's mothers you use okaasan.

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Originally Posted by Lil_G135

Oh? I thought it was like ChamaTama said, when talking to or about someone else's mother, you use "okaasan", but when referring to your own mother to someone else, you use 'haha'. And then when actually speaking to your mum you use '(o)kaasan'? That's how I was taught it ^^0

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I always thought so too. I mean, even in shows, people refer to their mothers as "haha" (like, "ore no haha", etc) but when talking TO their mothers they call them "okaa-san". I've never actually heard anyone call their own mother "haha" to her face.

It seems to me that you all aren't exactly right and not even I am guaranteed to be, but here is my observation: Okaa-san is used almost all the time. The kun'yomi of 母 is haha, but is not used by itself, only in this conjunction: 母親 [haha-oya], like female parent. It's almost always used by the Chinese and if the Japanese use it, it seems to be meant generally, like "international mothers' day" (if some of you celebrate it) would use haha-oya. Note that the oya word (parent) acts as a suffix of politeness.

True, it is pronounced as "haha" in that context but it doesn't always have to be with "oya", unless you really want to be polite.