step parents and half siblings

Question

I was just wondering how one would refer to a step parent or a half sibling?

Answer 1

padrastro, madrastra, hermanastro/a

media hermano media hermana

half bother sister is not the same as a step brother/sister

one is related by blood, one may be related only by marriage

I see that defined incorrectly so often that I can't remember which is which.

one of the terms defines a sibling that you share at least one parent with.

The other may be children you are only related to to marriage, for example, if my mother married my stepfather and he already had children they are related to me by marriage, but not by blood. However if my mother and stepfather then had more children those children would be related to me by blood since we have a common parent. Now I'm going to have to find out which is which. I should know as I had what I believe is a half sister (excuse the "had", she is no longer living.) in that we shared a common mother.

Half/brother sister shares a common parent. Step-siblings have completely different parents who marry each other. (Just thought I'd save you some research :) ). - Valerie, Sep 2, 2009

I can`t get any dictionary to come up with medio hermano/a always says hermanastro/a for both half and step. - kenwilliams, Sep 3, 2009