French: Talking about your family

Family is an important part of French culture. In this article, you can learn how to talk about your own family in French.

If you want to talk about your family, the verb avoir (to have) is useful.

Avoir is an irregular verb. Regular verbs follow the same pattern, but irregular verbs don’t.

The spelling of the verb will often be different for each person doing the action, so you need to remember the different forms:

So you can say what family you have:

• J'ai une mère – I have a mother
• J'ai un père – I have a father

To talk about more than one family member, you can also use the useful conjunction et which means 'and'.Conjunctions are joining words that link together parts of a sentence:

• J'ai une mère et un père – I have a mother and a father
• J'ai une sœur et un frère – I have a sister and a brother

If you don't have a brother or sister, you need the negative form of avoir.

To make a sentence negative, you add ne or n' (before a vowel) before the verb and pas after the verb.

So J'ai (I have) becomes Je n'ai pas – (I don't have).

• Je n'ai pas de frère – I don't have a brother
• Je n'ai pas de sœur – I don't have a sister

Did you notice that in English, after 'I don't have' we say 'a brother' and in French, we say de frère - any brother?

Here are some words to help you talk about your family.

Did you know?

To say 'a big brother' in French, you say un grand frère and 'a big sister' is une grande sœur.

To say 'a little brother', you say un petit frère and 'a little sister' is une petite sœur.

• J'ai un petit frère et un grand frère – I have a little brother and a big brother
• J'ai une petite sœur et une grande sœur – I have a little sister and a big sister

Look at the sentences. Did you notice that sometimes grand (big) and petit (small) have an e on the end?

This is because they are adjectives. So if they are describing a feminine noun, like une sœur, they add e at the end to become feminine to match the noun.

You can learn more about this in the article on Adjectives.

If you want to introduce someone from your family, you can say voici - here is…

• Voici ma mère – Here is my mother

You use the possessive adjective 'my'. In French, this changes depending on whether the noun is masculine, feminine or plural. This is called an agreement.

So if the noun is masculine, like un père, the possessive adjective is mon:

• mon père – my father

If the noun is feminine, like une mère, the possessive adjective is ma:

• ma mère – my mother

If the noun begins with a vowel or h, like un ami or une amie the possessive adjective is mon:

• mon ami – my friend (boy)
• mon amie – my friend (girl)

If the noun is plural where there is more than one family member, like les parents, the possessive adjective is mes:

• mes parents – my parents

Try using some of these phrases to introduce your own family members:

• Voici mon père – Here is my father

• Voici ma mère – Here is my mother

• Voici mon frère – Here is my brother

• Voici ma sœur – Here is my sister

• Voici mes parents – Here are my parents

• Voici mes grands-parents – Here are my grandparents

Here are some more words for members of your family.

When you're talking about members of your family, you can tell people their names. You use the verb s'appeler – to be called, which is a reflexive verb.

If a verb is reflexive, it means you are doing an action to yourself. It's like saying 'I call myself'. In front of these verbs, there is an extra word which makes it reflexive:

So when you're talking about your own name using je (I), there's a m' before the verb:

• Je m'appelle – I am called (I call myself)

When talking about someone else's name using il (he) or elle (she), there's an s' before the verb:

• Il s'appelle Joseph – He is called Joseph (He calls himself Joseph)
• Elle s'appelle Yasmin – She is called Yasmin (She calls herself Yasmin)

Here are some more examples. Try changing the names and using the phrases to talk about your family members.

Using the phrases you have learnt so far to introduce someone, you can say:

• Voici mon père, il s'appelle Faisal – This is my father, he's called Faisal

• Voici ma mère, elle s'appelle Mary – This is my mother, she's called Mary

• Voici mon frère, il s'appelle Anil – This is my brother, he's called Anil

• Voici ma sœur, elle s'appelle Kate – This is my sister, she's called Kate

We can also introduce family by using mon , ma or mes with the il/elle (singular) or ils/elles (plural) form of the verb s’appeller.

Listen carefully and you’ll notice that the ent ending on the plural forms is silent. This means that even though s’appelle (is called) and s’appellent (are called) are spelled differently, they sound the same!

Read and listen to the examples below:

Did you know?

If you want to ask what someone is called, you say:

• Comment s’appelle-t-il ? – What is he called?

• Comment s’appelle-t-elle ? – What is she called?

Did you notice that now the verb is in front of the person il and elle in the question?

There are also hyphens and the letter t to separate them. These help to make it easier to say.

To describe your family, you can say:

• Dans ma famille, il y a mon beau-père, ma mère et deux frères – In my family, there is my step-father, my mother and two brothers

• Dans ma famille, il y a mon père, ma mère et trois sœurs – In my family, there is my father, mother and three sisters

Remember that if you have more than one brother or sister, then you need to add s to the noun.

• un frère (a brother) – deux frères (two brothers)
• une sœur (a sister) – deux sœurs (two sisters)

Try describing your own family.

Below are some important French sounds that you have heard in this topic. Try practising them yourself out loud.

1. an, am and en

The letters an make a nasal sound. This is when air comes down your nose as well as through your mouth. Imagine the sound of an old-fashioned car horn. The e at the end of the word is silent.

• mon grand-père – my grandfather
• ma grand-mère – my grandmother

2. e

There are different ways of saying and writing e in French.

In the word mon frère (my brother) the letter e in the middle of the word has an accent line on it. It sounds like the e in 'egg'.

This sound can also be written as e before two consonants, ê, ai, aî, ei and e before a final c, l or t.

• mon père – my father
• ma mère – my mother

The e at the end of the word is silent.

3. œu

In the middle of the word for ma sœur (my sister), there are three vowels œu. Imagine that you have seen something unpleasant, open your mouth a little and sound disgusted.

The letters œ and eu also make this sound.

• ma sœur – my sister