--- title: My family — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «My family», a lesson of the french course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: In French the word for "my" changes with the word after it: mon père (my dad), ma mère (my mum), mes parents (my parents). --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/) / My family # My family Lesson 14 of the french course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/french/14-my-family/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/0/) — In French the word for "my" changes with the word after it: mon père (my dad), ma mère (my mum), mes parents (my parents). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/1/) — Many family words come in a boy form and a girl form: un cousin and une cousine, un oncle and une tante, un fils and une fille. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/2/) — Picture a French kitchen: the children call their grandparents mamie and papi, like nan and grandad, while a school form says grand-mère and grand-père. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/3/) — Plural letters are often silent: deux frères sounds exactly like deux frère, so you can only see the s, not hear it. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/4/) — Some family words look funny: une belle-mère is a stepmum, not a "beautiful mum", and sœur is written with the joined letters œ. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/5/) — J'ai deux frères means "I have two brothers"; the plural s is written but not heard. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/6/) — After ne ... pas, un, une and des usually change to de: j'ai une sœur, but je n'ai pas de sœur (I don't have a sister). - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/7/) — "My" is mon before a masculine word (mon père), ma before a feminine word (ma mère) and mes before a plural (mes parents). - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/8/) — Before a feminine word starting with a vowel sound, ma changes to mon so it is easy to say: mon amie (my girl friend), mon école. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/9/) — Children call their grandmother mamie and their grandfather papi (or papy); the full words are la grand-mère and le grand-père. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/10/) — un cousin is a boy cousin and une cousine ("koo-ZEEN") is a girl cousin; un oncle is an uncle and une tante is an aunt. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/11/) — An only child is fille unique (a girl) or fils unique (a boy); enfant unique works for anyone. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/12/) — le fils (the son) sounds like "FEESS": the l is silent and the s is said. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/13/) — un demi-frère is a half-brother; une belle-mère is a stepmum or a mother-in-law, and un beau-père is a stepdad or a father-in-law. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/14/) — frérot ("fray-RO") and sœurette ("sur-ET") are cosy slang for little bro and little sis. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/14-my-family/16/) — Slang here: "wee" (Scotland) means small; "bruv" means mate; "yeah nah" (Australia) means no; "my lover" (Bristol) means dear; "dead" (Ireland) means very; "no cap" means honestly; "tamping" (Wales) means fuming; "our kid" (Liverpool) means my brother or sister. - ← previous: [Weather and seasons](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/13-weather-and-seasons/) - next →: [Pets and animals](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/15-pets-and-animals/) - ↑ back to [French](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/french/)