30 Phrases to Talk about your Family

- They have four family members in my family.

Nope.

I have four family members.

Hmm.

There are four of us in my family.

Yes.

Don't sound like a book.

Learn to talk about your family with natural spoken English.

Let me show you how.

(bright upbeat music)

Hello, this is Keith from English Speaking Success

and the website, the Keithspeakingacademy,

helping you to speak better English

and to get a higher score on the IELTS speaking test.

Now did you know the secret to succeeding IELTS speaking is,

come closer,

to learn how to speak natural spoken English.

That's it, as simple as that.

Of course, once you've learned natural spoken English

you need to be practicing lots and lots.

Today, I'm gonna show you a great platform,

one of the best for practicing your spoken English.

It's Cambly,

it's where you can learn with native English speakers.

You can choose the time, the teacher, even the content.

I'll tell you more about that later,

as well as about the free lesson you can get

and some great discounts.

Now, in this lesson,

I'm gonna teach you some cool, well, pretty cool phrases,

natural spoken English to talk about your family.

And also, as a bonus, at the end of the video

I'm gonna answer the question,

a model answer, if you like

to the question, "What's your family like?"

Yes, the truth.

Finally, everything you want to know about me

and my family, stick around to the end to find out.

But for now let's push on.

Let's begin and talk about family size.

Now, if you have a large family

with lots of brothers and sisters,

you may say, "I come from a big family.

I come from a big family."

Great, exactly.

The opposite, I come from a small family.

I come from a small family.

Can you say?

Nice, I come from a small family.

If you have no brothers and no sisters,

you'll probably say, "I was an only child."

I was an only child.

I was an only child.

Notice we use was,

I was, I was an only child.

Was because it's the past,

well, because you are no longer a child.

Of course, you could say I am an only child

but normally we use the past.

Although, I remember, right, my mother,

when I was 25, my brother and sister were 30 something,

and my mother was like, "where are the children?"

And we are like, "hello mom,

25, not a child."

but that's mothers for you.

Ah, bless them.

Now, if you had brothers and sisters,

let's say two brothers and two sisters,

you could say I was one of five siblings.

Siblings means brothers and sisters.

But remember to include yourself, right?

Two brothers, two sisters and you.

I was one of five siblings.

What about you?

Actually, I was one of three siblings, for me.

Now, siblings, we don't use that much.

We tend to say brothers and sisters more.

Although we have the expression sibling rivalry,

and this is where brothers and sisters

compete against each other and try always to be better.

There was a lot of sibling rivalry in my family.

What about you?

Great, now, do you remember this?

My family has five family members.

Ah ah, not good.

What would be much more natural?

Remember?

Yes.

There are five of us in my family.

So how many people are in your family?

Great, leave me a comment below.

Let me know the size of your family.

Now, interesting, right?

A lot of students ask me the question,

if they are asked, "Tell me about your family."

And they say, "Keith, do I talk about my nuclear family

or my extended family?"

The quick answer is it's up to you.

You decide, it's fine.

Up until the age of say 20,

you're probably gonna talk about your brothers and sisters

your parents, grand parents, maybe some uncles,

this is what we call the extended family.

But at some point in your life maybe, if you are lucky,

you will fall in love,

and you will make a long term commitment to someone.

And that someone, maybe you get married,

maybe you have children, doesn't matter,

but that person becomes your family.

And this is what we call the nuclear family.

Not nuclear bomb, but sometimes maybe,

but nuclear family, it's your partner and children,

if you have children.

So the quick answer you can talk about either,

nuclear family or extended family,

whichever you like or both, why not?

Let's move on.

Let's move on and talk about brothers and sisters,

or siblings, if you like.

Now, brothers and sisters can be sometimes

very, very similar,

but sometimes they're actually incredibly different.

If they are very, very similar, you can say, for example

my brother and I are like two peas in a pod.

It means we are so similar.

Or my sister and I are like two peas in a pod.

If you are completely different,

my brother and I are like chalk and cheese.

Great.

Now of course, you can use these expressions

not only for siblings, but for relationships with parents

or uncles or grandparents or partners or spouses.

Here are some more expressions

you can use for that relationship.

We have our ups and downs.

Ups and downs is the good times and the bad times.

So sometimes you get on well, sometimes you don't.

We have our ups and downs.

Another expression with a similar meaning

that we don't always agree.

We don't always see eye to eye.

Eye to eye is to agree.

We don't always see eye to eye.

Notice the linking, see eye to eye,

we don't always see eye to eye.

Also, well, sometimes we fall out and then we make up.

To fall out is to have a disagreement with somebody

and to be angry and to refuse to talk to them.

And then to make up is to come back together

to love each other again.

So sometimes we fall out, but then we make up.

Now, if the people in your family,

you know, you get on pretty well together and you are close,

you can say, "well, we are a close family

or we are a tight knit family."

Sometimes that can be we are a tightly knit family,

tightly knit family.

We are a tightly knit family.

Just meaning we are close.

The thing is to be honest, I don't think

people in a family always get on well together, right?

I mean, that's not very realistic.

There're always ups and downs,

but even so you can be a tight knit family.

Even though you have your differences,

that normally means you have different opinions.

So you can say, "well, yes, we have our differences

but we are a tight knit family."

And also if your family is important to you,

you can say, "my family is everything to me,

or, and, "I love them to bits."

I love my family to bits.

To love somebody to bits is to love them a lot.

And finally, my family mean the world to me.

My family, my family mean the world to me.

World, great, lovely.

Let's push on.

Now let's talk about children.

Now, to be honest,

I don't know if you have any children or not.

Why not leave me a comment below and let me know.

What Keith, another comment?

Well, yes. Why not?

You need to practice.

Let me know if you have any children.

Now, if you are a parent and you've got children,

you'll know this.

Sometimes as parents, especially in the early days,

we want to take care of our children

but we do too much for them.

Here are three expressions or phrases you can use.

As a parent, I try not to be overprotective.

Overprotective, to protect and to do too much.

I don't want to spoil my children.

I try not to spoon feed them.

I love that expression, to spoon feed them.

I mean, literally, it's to feed them with a spoon

so you are giving them the food, but it's more abstract.

It's just to do everything for them, right?

Even when they're 15 years old, you spoon feed them

but better not do, I try not to spoon feed them

'cause I want them to be a bit more independent

so they can look after themselves in the big wide world.

Now, in a moment, we're gonna talk about

parents and partners, wives and husbands.

But first, let me tell you about

this really interesting platform

where you can practice your spoken English.

Now, when you learn natural spoken English

and start practicing it and using it

you are going to make mistakes.

That's fine, that's great, it's part of the process.

It's all also really good.

If you can have a teacher to correct you

and give you feedback on those mistakes

so you get better and better.

Now, one great place to practice

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It's great because well, for many reasons,

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I like Cambly also for the ease of the platform.

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select the time when you want the class,

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And what's great is you can go back

and watch the recording of the class

to review what you've learned, which is so important.

There are different packages available,

depending on your needs, there's something for everyone.

Now then, as Cambly are sponsoring this video,

thank you so much Cambly.

Then, you can get a free 15 minute lesson

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And then if you decide to sign up for a year

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If you think Cambly is right for you,

I think it's a great choice to practice, get feedback

and a long term investment in your English learning.

Fantastic, great.

Thanks Cambly, thanks for listening.

Let's move on to the next phrases to talk about your family.

Okay dokey.

Let's move on and talk about parents.

Now, you may have noticed that sometimes children

look like their parents, right?

The appearance is very similar.

So you could say, "I look like my father"

or, "I look like my mother."

If the appearance is really, really close, you can say

"I'm the spitting image of my father.

I'm the spitting image of my mother."

If your personality, so not your appearance,

but your personality is like your father,

you'd say, "I take after my father."

Take after.

I take after my father or maybe I take after my mother.

That's always referring to a parent, right?

You cannot take after your brother.

You only take after your parents.

Another useful phrase is,

"my parents brought me up with good values."

This is often the case, where we learn

really about the good and the bad it's from our parents.

My parents brought me up with good values.

Parents bring up their children,

to bring up means to educate,

to help them grow with certain ideas.

In the modern world families often live in different cities

or at least parents live in different cities.

And we stay in touch by WhatsApp, Skype, video conference.

A phrase that unfortunately I often use

is something like, "I don't see a lot of my parents.

As for my dad, I don't see a lot of him."

I don't see a lot of him.

Very natural but it just means

I don't see them a lot obviously.

It doesn't mean the relationship is bad,

it's just that probably we are living in different cities.

Finally, if your parents have died

you can say, very common way, "my parents have passed away."

To pass away, means to die, in this case.

My parents have passed away.

My mother passed away 20 years ago.

Okay, great.

Let's push on and talk about the nitty gritty

of partners, wives and husbands.

So now let's talk about wives and husbands

or more generally, we say spouses or partners.

Partners is a very popular word nowadays.

I think especially to create safe spaces because sometimes,

well, a lot of people are not actually married.

And so they're not considered husband and wife.

Also, you may meet a woman and you say,

"well, how's your husband?"

But maybe she's married to a woman.

And so partner, how's your partner,

creates a space that is safe for everybody.

Let's talk about love, love.

(gentle music)

Now sometimes when you meet somebody

and there's this instant something, right?

You fall in love.

Here are three phrases about falling in love instantly

like instant coffee.

First of all, it was love at first sight.

I'll do it slowly, it was love at first sight.

You can imagine, right?

First sight, instant love like instant coffee.

I fell for her instantly.

Doesn't mean you fell, but maybe you did

but it's the idea of falling in love.

I fell for her or for him instantly.

The last one is not so much about love,

but about getting on well, right?

We just clicked, we just clicked.

Lovely sound, clicked, we just clicked.

To click with somebody is to get on very well.

Now all of that is quite Hollywoodesque, right?

I mean it's Hollywood style, you meet somebody,

there's passion, you fall in love straight away.

But life isn't always like that, right?

I mean, sometimes marriage, it's hard work, it takes time.

You go through ups and downs,

you learn new things about your partner over time.

Some you like some you don't like,

it's not all a bed of roses.

So sometimes that love grows over time

as you get to know the person.

In this case, you could say, "we've grown to love each other

over time or, "we've grown closer and closer over the years"

We've grown closer and closer over the years.

Nice expressions, so different ways of falling in love,

firework or gradual growth.

Now I couldn't leave the topic of family

without giving you one of the most common

idiomatic expressions which is blood is thicker than water.

Blood from your family is more important

than water from your friendships.

Meaning family is more important than friends.

Blood is thicker than water.

Is it true?

I don't know.

You probably have a similar expression in your language.

Let me know in the comments.

Another comment?

Yes.

Let's move on.

I'm gonna finish with a nice model answer to that question.

Tell me about your family.

Now, the clever ones out there are saying,

"Keith tell me about your family isn't a question."

All right smarty pants, that's true.

The question would be, what's your family like?

It's the same, right?

Tell me about your family.

Okay, all of this is absolutely true

and it's a great way to review vocabulary.

So here we go.

I'm from a medium-sized family.

I was the youngest of three siblings.

I think all of us, all three of us, are quite different.

My brother and sister are quite extrovert

and I'm definitely the most introvert.

We certainly have our ups and downs.

And although we do fall out, sometimes we usually make up.

Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of them

because I live abroad.

But that said, we do stay in touch

with WhatsApp and video conferences.

Talking about my parents, I take after my dad.

And actually I'm also the spitting image of him.

I would say, I have my mother's love of cooking.

She was a phenomenal cook but unfortunately,

she passed away many years ago.

Of course I am married now, I say of course

maybe you don't know.

I am married and I have been married for around 20 years

and we have a daughter who is 15 years old.

To be honest, between you and me, my wife and I

are like chalk and cheese.

But I think it's the differences

that make our relationship interesting

and certainly keep us on our toes.

So again, between you and me,

my wife likes to be in control.

Some would say she's a control freak, but not me.

And I think I am mister laid-back.

I'm much more relaxed and easy going than my wife

probably too relaxed at times, she would say

and maybe she's right.

But all in all, we compliment each other.

As for my daughter, well, she's a mix of both of us

in a way, but I would say undoubtedly she is much smarter

and better looking than the pair of us.

So that's it, that is a little bit about my family.

So listen, we've looked at lots of interesting

and useful phrases for you to talk

confidently about your family with natural spoken English.

We've talked about family size, about parents,

about children, siblings, brothers and sisters, partners

and even I've pulled the curtain.

I pulled the curtain.

I've told you about my family a little bit as well.

And do remember, focus on your natural spoken English.

I mean, books are good and useful, right?

Absolutely.

But the great thing about video is you can get the sound

of the pronunciation and a real for the language

so keep practicing.

Remember, check out Cambly.

If you want to practice all of this

with some native English speaking teachers,

you can do, Cambly is the place to go.

You can try a 15 minute lesson for free

for a first time user, see if it's right for you

and then if you decide to go for it,

you can go for a one year package and get 40% discount

with the code newkeith.

Check it all out in the links below.

This has been great fun.

I'd love to find out more about your family.

Let me know.

Keith, seriously?

Another comment.

Yeah, go on, you know it makes sense.

Leave me a comment.

Tell me about your family.

I'm really eager to know

and learn about families around the world.

Do remember, subscribe, turn on notifications and listen.

I will see you in the next video, just around the corner.

Take care my friend, bye bye.