Ch 5 · Lesson 29French · Chapter 5 · Lesson 29 · Themed review
La famille
Everyone you have met so far, gathered in one place. The first theme the course can build - by the end of chapter 5 the family is complete.
Practise this lesson
16-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
Family is almost always tu
French spends enormous energy on the distance between and , then makes one near-blanket exception: family. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins, children. , from the start, with no ceremony about it.
Grandparents included
Learners often assume grandparents must be , on the reasoning that they are older and deserve the respect. They are not. A French child says to their grandmother from the moment they can speak, and is still doing it at forty.
Families who use with parents do exist. They are usually old and usually wealthy, and other French people find it as noteworthy as you would. If you ever meet one, someone will make a point of telling you.
The real grey area is the in-laws. Plenty of people say to a mother-in-law for years, until she suggests otherwise.
The words hide a trap
is your stepfather and your father-in-law. covers both on the other side. French does not distinguish them, so context has to carry it, which occasionally produces a sentence nobody can parse without asking a follow-up question.
Parent is wider than the English word. parents is your mother and father, but parent on its own can be any relative at all. If you mean a cousin rather than a father, say which.
Where tu extends to
Beyond the family, reaches further than you might expect:
- Children, always, whoever they belong to
- Fellow students, generally from the first day
- People roughly your own age somewhere obviously informal, a party or a hostel
The genuinely awkward case is a colleague. Some workplaces go to within days and others stay for years; until somebody offers , is the safe start, and there is a whole session on why.
One that sounds wrong and is not
On does most of the work of in spoken French, and round the family table it is the norm. On is what a French family says. is what a textbook says, or a parent being formal. Both are correct; on is the one you will hear.