Speaking English - Talking about Family

Hello there! My name is Ronnie.

And I'm going to teach you today about vocabulary we use in English to talk about

Your Family!

Some people have very very big families

or other people have very small families.

How big is your family?

People might ask you that question.

And I'll teach you

how to respond to it.

For example, if someone ask me "How many people are in your family?"

My answer would be four.

So I can say

I have...

...four...

...people...

...in...

...my family...

Now!

In English when we talk about people in our family,

we mean the people that live in the same house.

I do not include

my grandmother, my grand father,

my great grandmother,

all my cousins, my aunts and my uncles.

And someone asks you how many people are in your family,

they mean how many people live with you.

They could ... would take you if you have 50 cousins

"I have nine hundred people in my family."

wow!

So, you're gonna limit to the people who live with you.

Most families...

...have...

four, five, six, seven...

there is no regular number of people that a family have. It depends on you.

I have...

four people in my family.

You always include yourself.

So...

I have a mother.

Only one.

I have...

a father.

And I also have one brother.

The pronunciation of these three words are all the same.

Ending, not begining.

the first one is mother.

Then we have father

and brother.

I'll just the pronunciation of these in red for you.

So these are all b... sound like "thur" So this is "ma-thur"

fa-thur

and "ba-thur"

So you thinking to yourself

Ronnie,

I know you are bad in math

But I only see there people.

on the board

Don't forget about me!

You must include yourself when you are talking about your family because you're part of it.

So as you can see I have a mother, father and one brother.

That equals four.

If you have bigger family, maybe you have two...

...brothers.

Or...

if you have a sister or sisters.

We need to be careful...

with our countable nouns.

If you have only one, you're gonna say "I have one sister"

"I have...

...one sister."

If you have more that one sister, let's say you have five sisters

You must put an "s"

So one changes to five.

I must say "I have five sisters"

The pronunciation for sisters,

as you can probably type by the spelling, is different.

pronunciation is "sis...

...ter"

sister would be singular.

and plural...

We actually don't put an "s" sound on it, we put a "z" sound.

So, I would say "sisterz"

A lot of words in English

used a "z" sound at the end,

rather than a "s" sound.

But that's a whole other lesson.

So, we say "I have one sister"

or "...five sisters"

It's a same pronunciation with brother.

If you have more than one brother, you're going to say "I have two 'brotherz'"

It's gonna sound like...

"ba-thuz"

Okay?

This is my immediate family.

If you have more people living with you in your house,

maybe you have some grandmother or grandfathers

I will teach you all about of those.

But one thing I have to tell you that very important in English is

when we normally talk about our family

I wouldn't usually say mother.

I would say...

Does anyone know what we say in English if we were talking casually about our mother?

I would never say "mommy"

Mommy is only if you are a child.

Okay?

So, if you are under the age of five...

mommy is perfect.

But the older you get, you need to change mommy to...

...mom.

So, I now would say "I have a mom."

And if I were you, I would use as mom.

The father... we never say "I have a father"

It's very very strange when you speak casually.

Does anyone know the word for father?

We also have this word... we say...

...dad.

So choose so you can sound more natural when you speak about your family

You're gonna say "I have a mom and a dad...

...two brothers, one sister."

There are some other very important people in your family we need to talk about.

They are

maybe a little bit older than you, I hope they would be.

Older than your mother, and older than your father.

Does anyone know the name of your...

...mothers mom,

or your fathers dad?

In English we say...

grandmother and grandfather.

So...

your mothers mother is your grandmother,

and your fathers dad...

...is your...

grandfather.

But, again...

in English we don't like the words are they very long and very formal.

So we actually have a short form for both grandmother...

...and grandfather.

This would vary by what they would like to call them.

But most people generally call their grandmother...

grandma.

And once again, this is not the right spelling.

People do spell it right this.

But, this is how we pronounce it.

"gramma"

But you also have...

grandpa.

Except we don't even say the "d"

when we say it.

We say...

"granpa"

So you actually beating the "d"

and you say "granpa"

or...

"gramma"

You probably have...

or had...

two grandmothers and two grandfathers.

Maybe some of them have died.

But that's OK. You can still your first ... as grandma and grandpa.

So, I hope you and your family enjoy this video.

and we'll see you again too.

Bye!