Grammar ~21 min of the core left

Talk about your family

After this lesson you can

I can name the people in my family, say whose person or thing it is, and avoid saying a name twice.

Start the lesson Core 19–21 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

4 min

1. Possessives: whose.

my your his her its our their
(I) (you) (he) (she) (it: a thing, an animal) (we) (they)

his or her is chosen by the owner, not by the thing: her brother — the woman's brother, although a brother is a man.

2. Possessive 's: whose exactly. Anna's brother — Anna has a brother; this is him. my father's car — the car belongs to my father. The order is fixed: first the owner, then the thing.

3. Object pronouns — the form after a preposition.

I → me you → you he → him she → her it → it we → us they → them

This photo is for you. It's from her. This is for me.

Three examples:

  • This is my sister. Her name is Maria.
  • Tom's wife is Italian.
  • This letter is for him.
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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

"The brother of Anna" goes the other way round

✗ the brother of Anna

✓ Anna's brother

The of pattern sounds unnatural for people; in English the owner comes first. Learners copy languages where the owner comes after the thing (Spanish el hermano de Anna, French le frère d'Anna, Arabic, Portuguese).

2

I and me are different words

✗ This is for I

✓ This is for me

After a preposition, always use the object form. Some languages use one word for both (Chinese wǒ, Indonesian and Malay saya, Vietnamese tôi).

Pronunciation

4 min

/θ/ and /ð/ — in family words these two sounds are in almost every word.

The tip of the tongue is between the teeth; the air goes out over the tongue.

Voiceless /θ/ Voiced /ð/
three, thanks, Thursday this, that, they
mother, father, brother

Check: if you can't see the tip of your tongue in a mirror when you say it, the sound is wrong.

written for your language

Most languages haven't got these sounds, and the ear replaces them with s/z (French, German, Japanese), t/d (Italian, Turkish, Hindi) or f/v: three → "sree" or "tree", mother → "mozer" or "moder". Greek and Arabic have both sounds; Spanish from Spain has /θ/ — the c in cielo.

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Text

3 min

This is my family. My mother is Lucia. My father is Paulo. This is my brother Tom. His wife is Anna. Anna's sister is Maria. She is a student in Italy. This photo is for you. It is from them.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Gap fill.

  1. This is Anna. brother is Tom
  2. This is Tom. wife is Anna
  3. My parents are here. house is small
  4. I'm Anna. father is Paulo
Show the answers
Her, His, Their, My.

2. Transformation.

  1. Anna + brother
  2. my father + car
  3. Tom + wife
Show the answers
Anna's brother, my father's car, Tom's wife.

3. Gap fill.

  1. This is for (I)
  2. It's from (she)
  3. This photo is for (they)
Show the answers
me, her, them.

4. Matching.

  1. sister
  2. daughter
  3. husband
  4. parents
Show the answers
sister → a girl with the same parents as you, daughter → a female child, husband → a married man, parents → mother and father.
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Summary

Covered

  • possessives
  • 's
  • object pronouns after prepositions
  • family words
  • /θ/ and /ð/

Next — lesson 5: what I've got.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 5

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

14 words
  • family /ˈfæməli/ parents, children, brothers and sisters
  • mother /ˈmʌðə/ a female parent
  • father /ˈfɑːðə/ a male parent
  • parents /ˈpeərənts/ mother and father
  • brother /ˈbrʌðə/ a boy or man with the same parents as you
  • sister /ˈsɪstə/ a girl or woman with the same parents as you
  • son /sʌn/ someone's male child
  • daughter /ˈdɔːtə/ someone's female child
  • wife /waɪf/ the woman a man is married to
  • husband /ˈhʌzbənd/ the man a woman is married to
  • grandmother /ˈɡrænmʌðə/ your mother's or father's mother
  • child /tʃaɪld/ a young person; someone's son or daughter
  • children /ˈtʃɪldrən/ more than one child
  • photo /ˈfəʊtəʊ/ a picture from a camera

Writing

Four sentences about your family.

Example

This is my family. My mother is Lucia. My brother is Tom. His wife is Anna.

Checklist

The draft is saved on this device
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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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