How to Talk About Your Family in English

Talking about your family should be one of the easiest things to do in English.

These people are your family, so you should know them very well. Talking about your family for over five minutes should be no problem for you.

But many students stumble over this topic and just don’t know what to say.

In this article, we have mapped out several things you can talk about — from describing who they are and what they look like to the activities you like to do together.

Just follow all the steps below and you will find that you can talk about your family for several minutes.

The Basics

How many people in your family? And who are they?

When you first start introducing your family, you just need to say some basic simple things about them.

How many people are there in your family? And who are these people?

The listener needs to get an overall general picture of who your family is before you go into any details.

Let’s say you come from a family of four people—mum, dad, older sister and you. You could say:

• There are four people in my family — me, my mum and dad, and my older sister.

Now we have a very clear general picture of your family and who they are.

Other variations of a basic introduction of your family could be:

• I come from a small family — there are just three of us. Me, my mother and father.
• My family is very big. There are seven of us. Me, my mum and dad, my three brothers and our little sister.

Sometimes people might say "nuclear family" to describe the size of their family. This is used to describe a family of four people — two parents and two children.

• I come from a nuclear family — my mum and dad, me and my big brother.

Some families may just have one parent. How to talk about this?

• In my family, it’s just me and my mum. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.
• There’s just me and my dad in my family. No brothers, no sisters.

Where Do All Your Family Live?

To create a bigger picture in your introduction, you should talk about where your family live.

Which city? In a house? In an apartment?

Let’s look at some options.

• We all live in a small city in Thailand. We live in a house — it’s a small house but big enough for all the four of us.
• I live with my family in Beijing. We live in an apartment. There are only three of us, so there is plenty of room for us.

Other than the city and country where you live, and the type of home you live in, you don’t need to say much more than this.

But maybe one person in your family does not live with you. How to talk about this?

• We all live in a house in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur. But my sister doesn’t live with us. She is at college in Canada, so she lives there. I think she lives in a student dormitory, but I’m not sure.
• Me and my family live in an apartment in Tokyo. My older brother is married though and has his own family now. They live in their own apartment — it’s not too far from us.

Who Are All The People In Your Family?

This is where you provide a little detail about each person in your family. You can say their name and what they do — job or student.

At this stage, that is all you need to talk about.

Let’s take a look at some things to say:

• Well, there’s my dad — he works for a construction company. I think he’s a manager of some kind. And my mum — she does some work at home, writing articles.
• And my sister, Chloe, she’s at university — she’s studying marketing in Australia.
• And then me. I’m still at school.
• So, my dad — he’s a teacher — he teaches computer stuff there. And my mum works in a kindergarten. My older brother, Sam, is working — but I can’t remember what he does. My younger brother, Luke, is in middle school, and I am in high school.
  

Usually, when we are talking about our parents in English, we don’t give their names. We know their names, but we don’t use them — and we don’t tell other people their names unless they ask.

But we do tell other people the names of our brothers and sisters.

What Do You Like To To Together?

Most families enjoy doing some activities together. Even if it is just the simple act of eating together — there are some things that families always do together.

What do you do with your family?

Are there some things you only do with certain people in your family?

These are some ideas for you to look at:

• My mum always insists that the family sits together and has Sunday lunch together. It is very important to her. We have a big lunch and it is a good time to talk together and share things about our lives.
• We always go on holiday every year together. My dad loves to plan this big holiday — he makes me and my sister join him at the dinner table and we go over travel destinations.
• Then about one week before we go, we start preparing what to take. It’s always a really great time, and I look forward to it every year.
• Me, my brother and my dad like to go fishing together. To be honest, my dad really enjoys fishing — me and my brother just like to go and look around by the river and the boats.

Think about the things you like to do with your family — or some of your family — and then talk about that.

Maybe you have an interesting story to tell from when you did something with your family.