La Famille — French family members | Reference
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All the family members in French — from la mère and le père to les cousins — each with audio. French family members. This French family members vocabulary list gives you 16 essential words — from la mère (mother) to l’enfant (child) — each with audio and its English translation. Use it to build the French words you need to talk about family members, then test yourself with the games below.
La Famille
French family members
🎬 The 20-second version
5 quick questions on « La Famille » — guess before the reveal. Practise with the free games → Open this short as a page — transcript included →
📘 Family words in action
- Possessives match the noun: mon père, ma mère, mes parents — but mon before a vowel even for feminine: mon amie.
- beau- / belle- words mean BOTH step- and in-law: belle-mère = stepmother or mother-in-law; context decides.
- les grands-parents, les petits-enfants: hyphenated compounds; grand-mère has no -e on grand.
- aîné(e) = eldest, cadet(te) = youngest: ma sœur aînée.
- Informal: papa, maman, papi / mamie (grandpa/grandma), tonton / tata (uncle/auntie).
🇬🇧 The complete family tree in plain English
French family vocabulary comes in rings. The immediate family — la famille proche, your close family — is the chart above: mother and father (the word parent means both a parent and, more broadly, a relative), brothers and sisters (les frères et sœurs), children. Around it sits the extended family: grandparents, aunts and uncles (les tantes et les oncles), cousins. French speakers use one elegant word for all extended family members: les proches.
Family by marriage — and the beau/belle trick
French recycles “beautiful” for the in-laws: le beau-père, la belle-mère, le beau-frère — your family by marriage is literally the “beautiful family”, la belle-famille. The same words to describe in-laws double for step-family: a stepfather is also un beau-père, and context does the work. After a remarriage (un remariage), the blended household is une famille recomposée — the standard term French people use for step-family and family-in-law situations alike, one of those french family words with no one-word English equivalent.
Half-brothers, godparents and the modern family tree
A half-brother is un demi-frère, a half-sister une demi-sœur — same demi- as in the time lesson. A godparent gets a title still used warmly in France: le parrain (godfather), la marraine (godmother). Add un neveu, une nièce, and the family tree — l’arbre généalogique — is complete. Grammar notes for describing family: every term carries gender (masculine or feminine — le frère, la sœur), the plural takes -s (mes frères), and any adjective agrees: « ma grande sœur », « mes vieux oncles ». These are essential vocabulary words precisely because French small talk runs on them: describe your family in three sentences — « Dans ma famille, il y a quatre personnes… » — and you have survived the most common conversational opener in teaching French to beginners. That one skill — words for family plus être and avoir — is the heart of french learning at A1, whether you study with French idioms later or just want conversational basics; it is also, not coincidentally, the first lesson “aunt” (« ma tante ») and “grand” (« mes grands-parents ») words appear in any online french course, and a husband’s or wife’s relatives (les beaux-parents) follow one lesson later. Nearly every learner’s first real French paragraph is about la famille — including, in famously family-centred françaises households, for French children themselves; that shared starting point is precisely what makes this page’s vocabulary stick faster than any other list in the language learning journey.
Family members in French — FAQ
What are the 10 members of the family in French?
La mère, le père, la sœur, le frère, la grand-mère, le grand-père, la tante, l’oncle, la cousine, le cousin — the ten that cover most conversations, all in the chart above.
How do I say “there are four members in my family” in French?
« Il y a quatre personnes dans ma famille » — or « nous sommes quatre dans ma famille », which is what French speakers usually say.
What’s the French word for family?
« La famille » — feminine. The adjective is familial(e), and les proches covers your relatives collectively.
How do you say “how many people are in your family” in French?
« Vous êtes combien dans votre famille ? » (formal) or « tu es combien dans ta famille ? » — answer with « nous sommes… » plus the number.
🔊 Useful phrases
🔊 Example sentences
✍️ Practice
mother en français ? (family)
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la mère
Le frère de mon père est mon ___ (family)
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oncle
sister en français ? (family)
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la sœur
___ amie s’appelle Léa. (possessive before vowel)
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Mon
La mère de mon mari est ma ___ (in-law)
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belle-mère
🎬 Video lesson
French Family Members Vocabulary🎮 Practise this with games
🎯 More practice — vocabulary recall — both directions
How do you say « mother »? (recall)
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la mère
What does « les parents » mean? (recall)
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parents
How do you say « sister »? (recall)
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la sœur
What does « la fille » mean? (recall)
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daughter
How do you say « grandmother »? (recall)
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la grand-mère
What does « la tante » mean? (recall)
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aunt
How do you say « cousin »? (recall)
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la cousine
What does « la femme » mean? (recall)
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wife
Go further: this chart is one small piece — get the full picture in our guide How to introduce yourself in French.
Family members in French — FAQ
How do you say common family members words in French?
For example: mother is « la mère », father is « le père », parents is « les parents ». The full list above has 16 French family members words, each with audio so you can hear the pronunciation.
What are the most useful French family members words to learn first?
Start with the basics: la mère (mother), le père (father), les parents (parents), le frère (brother), la sœur (sister), le fils (son). Master these core French words before moving on to the rest of the list.
How can I memorise French family members vocabulary?
Learn the words in small themed groups, say each one out loud with the audio, and use it in a short sentence about your own life. Spaced repetition is what makes new vocabulary stick — see our guide to learning French vocabulary that sticks.
🎮 Practise this lesson
Games built from this exact page — turn what you just read into play:
🧩 Sentence Builder rebuild these sentences
🃏 Memory Match pair FR ↔ EN
🎧 Listening Game which sentence do you hear?
🎬 The whole word list, level by level
La famille from your first words to native speed — the terms you actually need at each level. Practise it with the free games →