Accents do family work
père, mère, frère all wear the è; bébé wears two é. Copy each word once with deliberate accents — the workbook gives this a whole tracing page, and a paper notebook does the same job.
La famille — twelve family words
Mother, father, brother, sister, grandparents and the rest — twelve family nouns with their articles, including the œ of la sœur and the nasal endings of les parents. This is the vocabulary the next three lessons build on for possessives, ages and describing people.
The words
| French | English | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| la famille | the family | lah fah-MEE |
| le père | the father | luh PEHR |
| la mère | the mother | lah MEHR |
| le frère | the brother | luh FREHR |
| la sœur | the sister | lah SUHR |
| les parents | the parents | lay pah-RAH(n) |
| le grand-père | the grandfather | luh grah(n)-PEHR |
| la grand-mère | the grandmother | lah grah(n)-MEHR |
| l’oncle | the uncle | LOH(n)KL |
| la tante | the aunt | lah TAH(n)T |
| le cousin / la cousine | the cousin | luh koo-ZA(n) / lah koo-ZEEN |
| le bébé | the baby | luh bay-BAY |
Respellings follow the course’s say-it key; the stressed syllable is in capitals. Print this lesson’s flashcards (PDF) — the words on the front, the English and respelling on the back.
Hear the words
Each word is read twice — say it back in the gap. Computer-generated voice; credits on the course page.
Do it now — on paper
- Draw a quick family tree and label every person in French, articles included.
- Sort the twelve into le / la / les columns from memory.
- Say who is in your own family: Il y a… works perfectly here.
This free course is the reading half. The writing half — write-in lessons, daily practice pages with built-in review, self-checks and a full answer key — is the companion workbook series, The French Ladder: one workbook per module, fifteen in all, released band by band with the Basic band (Modules 1–5) first.
Keep these words
Turn this lesson’s words into flashcards, then space your reviews — the two habits the research behind our study guides backs hardest.
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