ENGLISH VOCABULARY Family Vocabulary This Vocabulary Builder teaches you all about family
Time to learn some vocabulary. Family relationships in American English.
We’ll also go over a couple of idioms related
to family relationships.
On a recent family vacation, I pulled my family aside and made them go on camera for you.
So you’re going to get to see not only my
family, but you’re going to learn the words
we use when describing our relationships.
And we’re really going to focus on pronunciation.
For example, you should not be pronouncing
every sound in this word.
And this word has two pronunciations.
I’ll put the phonetics up with each word, and I really encourage you to practice out loud with this one.
Listen to how it’s pronounced in real life,
and then practice it with me.
Let’s get started.
This is my son, Nick.
This is my dad, Steve.
Son and dad.
When you have a child, it is a son or daughter.
SON is pronounced with the very relaxed UH
as in BUTTER vowel.
Suh– son.
And it sounds just like this word ‘sun’
as in, the sun in the sky.
There is absolutely no difference in pronunciation.
Son.
Son.
Say that with me.
Son.
Let’s watch that again.
This is my son, Nick.
This is my dad, Steve.
Dad. This is casual, but the most common way to
say ‘father’.
There have been only a few times in my whole
life that I’ve heard someone use the word
‘father’ outside of something official
like filling out a form.
Dad is just what we use.
Dad has the AA vowel.
Jaw drop, tongue lifted in the back: da– ah– dad.
Say that with me.
Dad.
Dad.
A quick note about ‘father’.
We can also use this idiomatically.
In this case, it doesn’t mean the actual
biological father of someone, but we can use
it to mean a man who has innovated or founded
something.
For example, in Philosopy, Petrarch is considered
to be the father of humanism'.
His writing and his ideas form the foundation
of humanism.
Henry Ford was the father of the American
auto industry.
Ok, let’s keep going.
This is our mom.
We’re sisters.
These are my daughters.
Mom.
Just like ‘dad’, it’s more causal but
also more common than ‘mother’.
The letter O here makes the AH as in FATHER
sound.
Mom.
Say that with me.
Mom.
Mom.
This is our mom.
We’re sisters.
These are my daughters.
Sisters. What a wonderful thing to have a sister.
I don’t have one, but I hear they’re great.
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable.
The R can sometimes mess people up, keep it
simple, it’s unstressed, er, er, er.
Sister. Say that with me.
Sister.
Sister.
Sisters.
Sisters.
We’re sisters.
These are my daughters.
Daughter.
AUGH, four letters, making just one sound,
the AW as in LAW sound, daugh–
Daughter. The T is a Flap T.
We make a T a Flap T when it comes between two vowels.
H is a consonant, but remember, these rules
don’t apply to letters, just sounds.
So it does come between two vowel sounds.
For the Flap, the tongue just bounces once against
the roof of the mouth ounce, ra- ra-
T, T. There’s
So there’s no real tt– T sound in it.
Daughter. Daughter.
In fact, most Americans would probably describe this flap as a D sound.
Daughter.
Just like ‘sister’, it ends in the schwa-R sound, simple and fast.
rr– rr– rr– daughter. Daughters.
These are my daughters.
We’re husband and wife.
This is my husband, Steve.
So we have husband and wife.
They’re married.
Husband.
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable.
The second syllable has this letter A, but
really, it’s almost like there is no vowel in it.
-band, -band, -band, Husband.
Notice the S here should be pronounced with
a Z sound.
Huzz, huzz, husband.
We’re husband and wife.
This is my husband, Steve.
Wife. One syllable. Wife.
Lips go in to form a really rounded shape:
wwwwiiii—
Then jaw drop, they relax. Wife–
Then the bottom lip comes up and touches the bottom of the top front teeth.
Wife.
Wife.
We’re husband and wife.
They are married.
Marry.
This can sound just like this word Mary or
this word Merry.
Married.
Married.
Now don’t forget grandparents.
This is my grandma.
Grandma.
The most common pronunciation of this has
two dropped sounds.
You can drop the N and the D. Gramma.
Grandma.
So the vowel here is a little tricky.
The AA vowel followed by M, gra— aahh–
You want to relax it. AA-uh. Get an UH in there.
Grandma. Gra– Gra– Gra– Grandma.
Grandma.
This is my grandma.
This is my father-in-law, Glen, and he’s my son Stoney’s
grandpa and he happens to be
an awesome grandpa because this is
what an awesome grandpa looks like.
Now there I said ‘grandpa’.
Just like ‘grandma’, drop the D. But you
do need to keep the N sound.
Or, some people definitely do change that
to an M. Grammmpa or grannnnpa.
The M is probably the more common pronunciation.
Gram– grampa.
So the tongue doesn’t go to the roof of
the mouth like it does for N,
but the lips just close in anticipation for the P: grammm– pa– grampa–
And again, just like grandma, get the UH in there.
Graa—- grammm— grandpa.
Grandpa. Say that with me, grandpa.
This is my father-in-law, Glen, and he’s my son
Stoney’s grandpa and he happens to be
an awesome grandpa because this is
what an awesome grandpa looks like.
Glen is my father in law.
But first, your grandpa and grandma together are grandparents.
Grandparents. You can drop the D.
And make either an N or M. Grandparents.
Grandparents. Say that with me.
Grandparents.
This is my father-in-law, Glen–
Father-in-law. The– in-law– part happens when you get
married.
He’s not my dad, he’s my husband’s dad.
So he’s my father-in-law.
Remember how I said we almost never use the
word ‘father’ in conversational English?
That’s true.
But with the ‘in-law’, we always use it.
We don’t say dad-in-law.
So in an ‘in-law’ phrase, it’s never
the ‘in-law’ that is stressed.
That’s always unstressed. It’s always the other word that’s stressed.
Father-in-law. Fa— Father-in-law.
Mother-in-law. Sister-in-law. Brother-in-law.
One exception is if you just say ‘in-laws’.
You don’t put father, mother, brother, or sister in front.
When you say in-laws, you stress the first word ‘in’.
And in this case, that means you spouse’s parents.
In-laws. My in-laws are coming next weekend.
Say that with me. In-laws. Father-in-law.
Mother-in-law.
Sister-in-law.
Brother-in-law.
Now, just a bit ago, I mentioned the word ‘spouse’.
One syllable word, this is the person that you’re married to.
Practice that with me: spouse. Spouse.
This is my mother-in-law, Anabelle.
Mother-in-law. Stress on MUH. Mother-in-law.
This is my mother-in-law, Anabelle.
This is my oldest sister, Audrey.
Now here, David said oldest sister.
He has three sisters.
They’re all older than him, and Audrey is
the oldest.
He could have also just said ‘older sister’.
Older, oldest, younger, youngest.
A couple of things to note about these pronunciations:
Oldest sister, oldest sister.
David dropped the T in ‘oldest’.
He just pronounced it ‘oldest sister’,
connecting with an S sound.
Listen again.
My oldest sister– My oldest sister– My oldest sister–
We often drop the T between two consonants.
The same would also be true for ‘oldest brother’.
We could just drop the T there because it’s between two other consonants.
Oldest brother.
These are very natural and common pronunciations
of these phrases.
The same would be true in ‘youngest sister’
and ‘youngest brother’.
You can drop the T there: youngest sister, youngest brother.
One thing I think is interesting about the
word ‘young’:
the word on its own is pronounced with the NG ending.
Young. Ng— No G sound.
But when you add ‘-er’ or ‘-est’, younger–
youngest, g-g-g– we DO say the G.
Younger, gg, gg, gg.
Youngest, gg, gg, gg.
What about ‘brother’?
This is my brother, Ian.
Two syllables, stress on the first syllable.
Brother, brother.
Same ending as sister, mother, and father.
All of these THER endings, these are tricky.
This one has a voiced TH right in the middle, and
I know that can be a challenging sound.
It’s just the very tip that comes through.
Th– th– Light, don’t hold the air: th, th, th.
Broth, th, th, ther– ther–
Moth, th, th, ther– ther–
ther– brother–
This is my brother, Ian.
I’m Stoney’s uncle because I’m married to David’s sister.
Okay, maybe it would be useful now to look
at a family tree.
Leon is Stoney’s uncle
because Leon married Audrey
who is the daughter of Glen and Anabelle
And David is the son of Glen and Anabelle.
And Stoney is the son of David.
Therefore, Leon is Stoney’s uncle.
Uncle. We have the letter N, but it’s actually
the NG sound because it’s followed by K
Unk— uncle– un– un– NG sound. Uncle.
A quick dark L at the end. Uncle: ull–ull–ul–
You don’t need to lift your tongue tip, just make a sound with the backof the tongue. Ull– ull– ul– very short.
Uncle, uncle.
The word uncle can be used idiomatically to
mean, I give up.
For example, if I was wrestling you and I
had you pinned to the ground, you might say
“uncle”, which is, I give up, you won,
get off of me.
Uncle.
I’m Stoney’s uncle as well.
And what’s your relationship to each other?
We’re brother-in-laws.
Steve is Stoney’s uncle
because Steve married Lisa, who is the daughter of Glen and Anabelle
and David is also a child of Glen and Anabelle.
Steve is Stoney’s uncle.
Steve and Leon are brothers-in-law.
They’re in the same line here but they are not biological siblings.
And what’s your relation ship to each other?
We’re brother-in-laws.
This is our aunt.
Don’t I have a great family?
Aww. That was a bunch of kids from this level.
Anyone from this level referring to a female on this level,
is going to call that person ‘Aunt’ unless of course it’s the mother.
So I’m over here and those kids were all from here.
So I’m their aunt.
You may have noticed they used the pronunciation ‘aunt’
and I used the pronunciation ‘aunt’.
Aunt is more common, and it’s pronounced
just like this word ‘ant’
even though the spelling is different.
Aunt or aunt.
Practice these with me.
Aunt.
Aunt.
This is our aunt.
Don’t I have a great family?
We are cousins.
Cousins. So anyone who is the child of your aunt or uncle is a cousin.
So everyone in this level
relates to each other as cousins.
Not up and down but side to side.
Up and down is called siblings and we’ll get to that in a minute.
Cousin.
Just like ‘husband’, the letter S is the
Z sound here.
Cous, zz, zz, cousin.
Practice that with me.
Cousin.
Cousin.
We are cousins.
This is my nephew, Jacob. He is my husband’s sister’s son.
Nephew.
Two syllables, stressed on the first syllables.
PH makes the F sound, just like in the word ‘phone’ or ‘pharmacy’.
Say it with me.
Nephew.
Nephew.
This is my nephew, Jacob. He is my husband’s sister’s son.
These are my nieces.
Niece. One syllable, EE vowel.
Ending S sound.
In the plural, nieces, the S adds not just a
sound but a second syllable: nieces– iz– iz– iz– iz–
Words that end in the S sound get an extra
syllable in plural.
To see all the plural noun rules, check out this video,
and I’ll put a link to it in the description as well.
Practice these with me: niece– nieces–
These are my nieces.
We are siblings.
People who have the same parents or even one same parent are siblings.
Audrey, Lisa, Christina, and David.
All have the same parents, they are siblings.
This set would also be siblings. This set would be siblings.
And this set would be siblings.
Poor Stoney has no siblings.
Sibling. This is a two-syllable word with stress on the first syllable.
Sibling.
The B releases right into the L, bl, bl, bl. Sibl– sibl– sibling– sibling–
We are siblings.
This is my grandson, Jacob and my granddaughter, Emily.
Grandson
and granddaughter.
For grandson, drop that D. Gran– Grandson, grandson.
Try that with me.
Grandson.
For granddaughter, well, we need it.
Because it’s part of ‘daughter’.
Granddaughter.
Granddaughter. Stress is on the first syllable.
Try that with me: granddaughter– grandson–
granddaughter–
This is my grandson, Jacob and my granddaughter, Emily.
This is my boyfriend.
This is my girlfriend.
How cute are they?
When you’re dating someone, you can call
them your boyfriend or girlfriend.
Both two-syllable words with stress on the
first syllable.
Try them with me: boyfriend– girlfriend–
Boyfriend, girlfriend.
This is my boyfriend.
This is my girlfriend.
A couple more terms: If someone’s sperm
or egg makes a baby, that is their biological child.
Biological.
Someone can also adopt a child that is not
biologically theirs.
If someone has children alone or with one
partner, and then gets married to someone else later,
that person’s children are now
the stepchildren of the new partner,
and that new partner is a stepmom or stepdad.
Notice in these compound words, the word ‘step’
is stressed.
Notice also we do not release the P: stepmom– stepmom–
The lips close for the P, but then just
keep going with the next sound: step– mom–
Stepmom, stepdad, stepdaughter, stepson, step
brother, stepsister.
A companion podcast will be released tomorrow
that goes over more about family relationships
and some more family idioms.
This is the Learn English podcast with me.
Click here to get it.
Or go to iTunes or Stitcher and search ‘Rachel’s English’, links also in the description below.
Check it out, I think you’re going to love it.