Extended Family vs. Immediate Family 👪 English Vocabulary with Jennifer

Hi. I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer, and I'd like to share a lesson

to help you learn English vocabulary and understand American culture a little better.

Thanksgiving is a time when we gather with family.

Sadly, my family is so spread out that we can't easily gather for holidays.

My relatives don't just live in different towns or even different states; they live

in different countries. Thankfully, I have some things in my home that make me feel

closer to family. For example, I have serving dishes from my grandmother.

Like this one and this one. When I see them and use them, I think of all the

Thanksgiving dinners we had with family around the table. My extended family is quite large.

Do you know what I mean by extended family? In this lesson, we'll go

beyond basic family vocabulary and we'll talk about different branches on your

family tree.

When you're a kid, your immediate family is your parents and your siblings.

Some call this the nuclear family. I think sometimes the words are interchangeable.

Nuclear family. Immediate family. But what I understand is that the nuclear family

is under one roof. The household of a nuclear family consists of the parents

and the children. My concept of immediate family is a bit bigger.

As adults many of us

get married and have children. You could say that my nuclear family now is

my husband and our children. But when I think of immediate family,

I still include my parents and my brothers. Does that make sense?

But those relatives are not necessarily considered immediate family for my children.

For them, their immediate family is me, my husband, their father, and each other. Get it?

You'll hear the term "immediate family" in the context of rules

and policies. For example, at a hospital, a very sick patient would be allowed to

receive visits only from immediate family. And at work, you would be allowed

to take off a certain number of days for a family emergency. That's a kind of

emergency that concerns immediate family, not some distant cousin.

Extended family refers to relatives outside the nuclear family: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.

All those more distant branches on your family tree are part of your extended family.

Did you know your great-grandparents? Maybe you're fortunate enough

to still have them around today.

I knew my great-grandmother. She was my grandfather's mother, and she came to the U.S.

from Hungary. She married my great-grandfather who came from Serbia.

My great-grandparents on my grandmother's side were from Poland, and they didn't

live long for me to meet them. Obviously, I didn't

have the chance to meet my great-great-grandparents.

I met my paternal grandparents, my father's parents, because they visited us

from the Philippines when I was a child.

Note how we can use these phrases to clarify which part of the family tree

were referring to: on my mother's side, on my father's side, my maternal grandparents,

my paternal grandparents.

Now this is where it gets a little confusing. Who is the sister of your grandmother or grandfather?

That's your great-aunt. Some say grandaunt,

but I don't hear that too much. I knew at least two of my great-aunts on

my mother's side. My grandmother's brother needed regular care, so he lived

with my grandparents. Who was he to me? He was my great-uncle, and I was his grandniece.

My brothers were his grandnephews. You'll also hear "great-niece" and "great-nephew."

Same thing. Just remember that we use "great" to indicate that we're one

generation removed from that person. We add on another "great" for each generation.

Can you name your great-great grandparents? Do you know how I called my relatives

in childhood? Forms of address vary from family to family, especially in

intercultural marriages. I called my grandparents on my mother's side Grandma

and Grandpap. I called my grandparents on my father's side Lola and Lolo.

My -uncle was Uncle Jim. My great-aunt was Aunt Kazia. And note how I said "aunt."

In American English. you can say /ænt/ or /ɑnt/. I just happened to say /ænt/. My Aunt Kazia.

My children call my husband's mother Babushka.

Their grandmother is in Russia. What do you call your grandparents?

How do you address aunts and uncles?

My father immigrated from the Philippines, so I

didn't get to know his side of the family too well. I did get the chance to

meet most of his sisters. They were and are my aunts. On my mother's side, I

didn't have any aunts or uncles because she was an only child. But my grandmother

came from a very large family, and her siblings had children, so my mother and I

had lots of cousins growing up.

A first cousin is the child of an aunt or an uncle.

Second cousins share great-grandparents. Think about that for a moment.

My grandmother had one child, my mother. My grandmother's sister, my Aunt Kazia

also had children. Those children were first cousins to my mother.

Their children and I share a set of great-grandparents, so we're second cousins.

At least, that's how I understand it. When it gets really confusing, we just

call people cousins. I have a lot of cousins back in Pennsylvania, my home state.

You can get into third cousins when you start talking about children of

second cousins, but if it gets too confusing, then just call people cousins

or simply family. You can call relatives family. You're related. They're part of

your extended family. When we can't remember exactly how we're related, we

sometimes refer to someone as a distant cousin. You know that you're related by blood.

Sometimes you'll hear once removed or twice removed. This refers to how far

apart you are in generations. My mother's first cousin and I became quite close.

She is my first cousin once removed. For my children, she is

their first cousin twice removed. They simply think of her as a cousin.

It's simpler that way. Let's not forget about in-laws. When you get married, you marry into another family.

My husband's parents are my in-laws. My mother-in-law and

father-in-law were able to attend our wedding because we got married in Russia.

My husband has a sister. She is my sister-in-law, and my brothers became my

husband's brothers-in-law.

Note these plural forms: mothers-in-law,

fathers-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law.

But to talk about the mother and father of your spouse, you can simply say "in-laws." For example,

"We're spending Thanksgiving with my in-laws." Or "My in-laws are visiting this weekend."

In modern society, we have different kinds of families. Second and third marriages

are fairly common, so we have blended families. That's when two families become one.

A couple gets married, and they bring with them children from a previous marriage.

The ex-husband or ex-wife are no longer

immediate family to the person who got remarried. In a blended family or in a

second marriage, we can talk about stepparents and stepchildren, stepmother

stepfather, stepsister, stepbrother. When you think about parents and siblings and

cousins of a stepmother or stepfather, it gets a little confusing. You can explain

that someone isn't a blood relation. They're not a blood relative, but they're

still family. You can be related by birth or by marriage. The funny thing is that

we can be very close to someone who isn't a blood relative,

but they're like family. We say, "She's like a sister to me." "I consider him family."

Here are a couple more words you need to know. What do we call two

children who share only one parent?

They're half-brothers and half-sisters.

For fun and for practice, talk about your family. See how many people you can name

on your family tree. Use vocabulary from this lesson.

Here's a quick quiz you can answer in the comments.

Who is your mother's new husband?

Who is your grandmother's brother?

Who is your aunt's son?

Who is your wife's sister?

Who is the son of your father and stepmother?

Who is your great uncle's granddaughter?

What's a blended family?

Name two different ways people can be related.

That's all for now. I hope you found this lesson useful and interesting.

Please like and share the video with others learning English.

As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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