Who are tía and tío?

Question

I am little confused. Is tía: mother's sister, father's sister, wife of mother's brother and wife of father's brother? Is tío: father's and mother's brother and husband of mother's and father's sister? Is it the same in English? I am from Croatia, and we have different names for this members of family and I ask myself is there any other word in Spanish except tío and tía that I should know to describe this members of family?

Answer 1

Tía = Aunt. Meaning she could be your mother's sister, your father's sister, OR if one of your father's brothers married, she would also be your aunt (same thing for your mother's side of the family)

Tía = Uncle. Meaning he could be your mother's brother, your father's brother, OR if one of your mother's sisters married, he would also be your ucnle (same thing for your father's side of the family)

So, in other words, Yes!

I don't think there are any other words that you can use for Aunt and Uncle.

Answer 2

Here is a link to a flashcard set of all the different family names

Answer 3

Tía is aunt. If you wanted to distinguish the aunt directly, you could say "La hermana de mi madre." - My mother's sister. Hermano is brother, padre is father, tío is uncle, so you can interchange them to fit the situation.

When you want to say "Husband of my mother's sister," or "Wife of my father's brother," you can use el esposo and la esposa. Of course, el esposo means husband and la esposa means wife. I'm not quite sure if there is a way to say brother-in-law or sister-in-law, so I would stick with husband of my father's sister, etc.

Answer 4

Thank you both! I am happy because of that. I wish that we do not have so many different names for different members of family in my language. To be honest, I also don't know all that names.

Answer 5

Yes, you are right, all those are tías and tíos in both languages.