The unfortunate fact that the Chinese character for mother (妈) comprises of the radical woman/female (女) on the left and the radical horse (马) on the right. Female + Horse = Mother. The only female horses I know are the ones from BoJack Horseman or Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzLW3WSMlug

What you need to know about addressing family in Chinese:

1. Differentiating extending family members and relatives the father’s side or mother’s side are important. While the importance of this differentiation is declining, especially in the younger generations, it is embedded in the language itself. Typically in the English-speaking contexts, it is not common to differentiate between one’s paternal (father’s) side and one’s maternal (mother’s) side of the family. But in Chinese culture – one in which children largely follow their father’s last name and the continuation of the family name is traditionally important – the differentiation between the two sides are embedded in the language. My paternal grandfather is 爷爷 (yéye), but my maternal grandfather is 公公 (gōnggong). The paternal grandmother is 奶奶 (nǎinai), while the maternal grandmother is 婆婆 (pópo).
2. Age is important. Whether a person is an older sibling, a younger sibling, the middle child in the family or the eldest are expressed through the language. This is not the case in English, when a brother is a brother, and the language does not outwardly require an expression of whether he is an older brother, the eldest brother, or a younger brother. The Chinese language makes this difference explicit – eldest brother is 大哥, second eldest brother is 二哥，and so on so forth. An older brother in general is 哥哥. Younger brother is 弟弟。This even applies to your uncles and aunts, and their age relative to your parent. An uncle on your mother’s side is referred to as 舅舅 (jiùjiu). An uncle on your father’s side (your father’s brother) who is older than your father is called 伯 (bó) – and depending on which older brother he is in relation to your father, you add the numerical prefix in front. So if your paternal grandma had three sons and your father is the youngest of the three, you would refer to your two paternal uncles (your father’s two older brothers) as 大伯 and 二伯 respectively. If your father is the oldest of the three brothers, then your two paternal uncles are not referred to as 伯, but as 叔 (shū).
3. We refer to strangers the same way we refer to our family. This sometimes carries forward into our use of English too, and confuses English-speaking foreigners a lot. For example, 阿姨 (āyí) is how we refer to our actual aunts, but if we meet an older woman (around your parents’ generation) at a market, we might also call her 阿姨 (āyí), even if she is a stranger. This is meant to show respect to her as an older woman. Since many Chinese communities speak English too, we carry over this cultural practice into our English, and might call her aunty/auntie even though this woman might be a complete stranger. So don’t be surprised if you go to a Chinese-speaking country and your friend calls the cab driver uncle. The random cab you got into with your friend is not driven by your friend’s actual uncle! It is just a common and polite way of addressing strangers.