はは or おかあさん what should be used?


What I've learnt is: when you talk about your mother you use はは、 when you talk
about someone else's mother you use おかあさん。

But what happens when you talk **to** your mother? How should you address her?

In anime they usually say おかあさん, but isn't it too formal?




If you want to talk to your mother in Japanese, call her おかあさん. This is like
calling your mother "mother". Small kids sometimes call their mother ママ
("mommy"), but since you're probably older than 10, you should stick to おかあさん.
(And no, it's not too formal. Anime Japanese is not really known for being too
formal...)

There are cutefied or colloquial variants on おかあさん, like おかあちゃん, かあちゃん, かあさん.

By the way, it's also possible to talk about your own mother using おかあさん, as
in うちのお母さんが…

Just to be clear, 母 is not a form of address, but expresses the biological
relationship "mother". Talking to your mother, you wouldn't address her with
母. You can use 母 in principle for talking about other mothers (太郎君の母を見ました),
but this sound like "I saw Taro's biological mother".

In the olden days, 母上 was (and in Samurai circles still is) a formal way of
addressing (and talking about) your own mother.




How children address their mothers totally depends on the family.

Common ones are:

おかあさん、ママ、おふくろ、おかあちゃん、かあちゃん, etc.

It is not formal at all to use おかあさん. In fact, it is so common that I had to
place it at the top of the list above.

Uncommon ones include: [母上]{ははうえ}、お[母様]{かあさま}, etc.

In real life, I have only met one person who addressed her parents 母上 and
[父上]{ちちうえ}, respectively. She was from an very old-fashioned and strict family
with a lawyer father.

