Family members in French

Level A1

Family members in French

This lesson gives you the French words for your family, from mère and père to cousin, and the sentences to introduce them and ask about someone else's. Every family word is masculine or feminine, and "my" changes to match it: mon frère, ma sœur, mes parents. Lines marked informal use tu, for friends and people your age; lines marked formal use vous, for a neighbour or anyone you've just met. And notice that French gives your age with avoir, "to have": "Il a douze ans" is literally "he has twelve years".

Close family: mère, père, frère, sœur…

Grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins

Le, la or les: every family word has a gender

MasculineFemininePlural
le pèrela mèreles parents
le frèrela sœurles frères et sœurs
le filsla filleles enfants
le marila femme—
le grand-pèrela grand-mèreles grands-parents
l'onclela tanteles oncles et tantes
le cousinla cousineles cousins

Introducing someone: Voici ma sœur, Ana

Voici ma sœur, Ana.

Saying how many: J'ai deux frères

J'ai deux frères.

Asking about someone's family: Tu as… ? or Vous avez… ?

Tu as / Vous avez des enfants ?

Mon, ma, mes, and no 's in French

"My" has three forms in French, and they match the family member, not the speaker: mon before a masculine word, ma before a feminine one and mes in the plural, so a man and a woman both say "ma mère" and "mon grand-père". "Your" works the same way: ton, ta and tes when you say tu, as in "Tu habites chez tes parents ?" (chez means "at the home of"), and votre, or vos for more than one, when you say vous: "Votre mari est d'ici ?"

French has no 's, so "my mother's sister" turns into "the sister of my mother": "Ma tante, c'est la sœur de ma mère." There's no everyday word for "siblings" either; you say frères et sœurs.

Watch out for two words that do double duty: fille is both "daughter" and "girl", and femme is both "wife" and "woman". For a family with lots of children, French says une famille nombreuse: "On est une famille nombreuse", where on is everyday French for "we".

Looking at a family photo: C'est ta famille ?

Meeting a new neighbour: Vous avez des enfants ?

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