Sohcahtoa

Just an easy way to remember how Sine, Cosine and Tangent work:
Soh...
Sine = Opposite / Hypotenuse
...cah... Cosine = Adjacent / Hypotenuse
...toa
Tangent = Opposite / Adjacent

Right Triangle
OK, let's see what this is all about.
Firstly, the names Opposite, Adjacent and Hypotenuse come from the right triangle:

"Opposite" is opposite to the angle

"Adjacent" is adjacent (next to) to the angle

"Hypotenuse" is the long one

Adjacent is always next to the angle

(and opposite is opposite the angle)

Sine, Cosine and Tangent

And Sine, Cosine and Tangent are the three main functions in trigonometry.
They are often shortened to sin, cos and tan.
The calculation is simply one side of a right angled triangle divided by another side ...
we just have to know which sides, and that is where "sohcahtoa" helps.
For a triangle with an angle , the functions are calculated this way:
Sine Function: soh... sin() = opposite / hypotenuse
Cosine Function: ...cah... cos() = adjacent / hypotenuse
tan() = opposite / adjacent
Tangent Function: ...toa

Example: what are the sine, cosine and tangent of 30 ?

The classic 30 triangle has a hypotenuse (the long side) of length 2, an opposite side of
length 1 and an adjacent side of 3, like this:

Now we know the lengths, we can calculate the functions:

Sine
soh...
sin(30) = 1 / 2 = 0.5
Cosine ...cah... cos(30) = 1.732 / 2 = 0.866
Tangent ...toa
tan(30) = 1 / 1.732 = 0.577