The article analyzes the perceptions that math teacher candidates have about the concepts of relation, equivalence relation and ordered relation with the use of metaphors. The study that took place in the spring semester of the academic year 2011-2012, included 158 participants that were candidate teacher students at the University of Erzincan, Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary Mathematics Education. The candidates had to complete prompt sentences such as "Relation/ Equivalence Relation/ Ordered Relation are like/similar to....; because...” Teacher candidates built 87 different and valid metaphors concerning the concept of relation, 36 metaphors concerning equivalence relation and 32 metaphors concerning ordered relation. The results of the analysis reveal that the concept of relation was understood as an equivalent to "marriage" or as "the relationship between the student and the grades", the equivalence concept was understood through the concepts of "love", "fraternity" and "kinship", and ordered relation was understood through the concepts of "blood transfusion", "height" and "age order".