Mutter, Vater, Kind

The German family words look friendly. Mutter, Vater, Sohn, Tochter, Bruder, Schwester and Familie are close enough to English that you have probably guessed them already, and Mama, Papa and Baby need no guessing at all. The difficulty is elsewhere: in the words that mean two things, and in one that has the wrong gender.

Words doing two jobs

Mann is man, and it is also husband. Frau is woman, and also wife, and also the title Mrs or Ms. So meine Frau is my wife, and Frau Schmidt is how you address Ms Schmidt at work. German does not see a problem here, and after a while neither will you.

Freund is friend, and also boyfriend. Freundin is friend, and also girlfriend. Das ist mein Freund is ambiguous in a way that causes real confusion at parties. Germans who want to be clear say ein Freund von mir, a friend of mine, which rules out the romantic reading.

The girl who is not feminine

Mädchen is girl, and it is neuter: das Mädchen. This is not an opinion about girls. Every noun ending in -chen is neuter, because -chen makes a thing small, and the grammar follows the ending rather than the person. Learn the article with the noun and the question never comes up.

Junge is boy, and Kind is child, also neuter, which at least has the virtue of being consistent.

People in general

Mensch is a human being, a person, with no gender implied. It is also an exclamation of frustration: Mensch! is roughly oh, for heaven's sake.

Leute means people and exists only in the plural. There is no singular. The same is true of Eltern, parents: you cannot have one Elter in normal German, only a Vater or a Mutter.

Why these come as a set

Family words are where a learner first needs possessives: mein Vater, meine Mutter, meine Eltern. The ending on mein changes with the gender and number of the person, not with you. Drill this group together and the possessive endings arrive for free, because you will say them about real people you know, which is how grammar actually sticks.