Expressions: La Famille | French Grammar

Talking about family is one of the first things you do in any new language. In French, the basic kinship terms are easy enough — père, mère, frère, sœur — but the full system is richer than English speakers expect. French distinguishes step-relatives from in-laws using the same prefix (beau-/belle-), marks half-siblings with a separate prefix (demi-), and stacks the prefix arrière- to reach across generations. Then there is the parallel system of childhood endearments — papa, maman, mamie, tonton — which children and adults still use far more freely than English equivalents.

This page covers the core kinship vocabulary, the prefix system that combines them, the marriage and civil-status terms (marié, pacsé, veuf), and the everyday expressions you'll need to talk about your family. By the end, you should be able to draw your own family tree in French and describe each person with the right term.

The nuclear family: parents, siblings, children

The basic vocabulary comes in masculine/feminine pairs. Every kinship term has gender, and the gender matches the actual sex of the person — there is no neutral form.

Masculine	Feminine	English
le père	la mère	father / mother
le fils	la fille	son / daughter
le frère	la sœur	brother / sister
le mari / l'époux	la femme / l'épouse	husband / wife
le parent	la parente	parent / relative

A trap for English speakers: parents in the plural usually means the same as English (mother and father), but un parent in the singular often means a relative — anyone in the extended family. Context disambiguates.

Mes parents habitent en Bretagne, mais j'ai aussi des parents éloignés au Québec.

My parents live in Brittany, but I also have distant relatives in Quebec.

Sa fille aînée a six ans, son fils a quatre ans.

Her oldest daughter is six, her son is four.

Note also that la femme means both wife and woman — context disambiguates, but in formal contexts you'll often hear l'épouse to remove ambiguity.

Birth order and only children

French marks older and younger siblings explicitly, with adjectives that come from a different root than English equivalents.

aîné(e) = older / oldest. Mon frère aîné = my older brother.
cadet / cadette = younger / second-born. Ma sœur cadette = my younger sister.
benjamin(e) = the youngest of the family.

Je suis le benjamin de la famille — j'ai deux grandes sœurs et un grand frère.

I'm the youngest in the family — I have two older sisters and an older brother.

Mon frère cadet vient d'avoir son bac.

My younger brother just got his high-school diploma.

For an only child, the term is fils unique (only son) or fille unique (only daughter). There is no single noun like English only child — you have to specify the gender.

Elle est fille unique, donc elle a passé son enfance avec ses cousines.

She's an only child, so she spent her childhood with her female cousins.

Twins

un jumeau / une jumelle = a (identical or fraternal) twin.
des jumeaux (mixed or all-male), des jumelles (all-female) = twins.
vrais jumeaux = identical twins; faux jumeaux = fraternal twins.

Mes cousines sont jumelles, mais elles ne se ressemblent pas du tout — elles sont fausses jumelles.

My cousins are twins, but they don't look alike at all — they're fraternal twins.

Extended family: aunts, uncles, cousins

French uses gendered forms throughout, with no single epicene term for cousin the way English has.

Masculine	Feminine	English
l'oncle	la tante	uncle / aunt
le neveu	la nièce	nephew / niece
le cousin	la cousine	cousin (m / f)
le grand-père	la grand-mère	grandfather / grandmother
le petit-fils	la petite-fille	grandson / granddaughter

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Grand-mère is a fossilized compound — grand doesn't agree in gender. You write grand-mère, never grande-mère. The plural is grand-mères or, in older norms, grands-mères. Both are accepted, but most modern French writers use the invariable form.

Je passe le week-end chez ma grand-mère à la campagne.

I'm spending the weekend at my grandmother's in the countryside.

Mon oncle et ma tante ont trois enfants, donc j'ai trois cousins.

My uncle and aunt have three children, so I have three cousins.

To specify first cousin vs second cousin, French uses cousin germain (first cousin, sharing grandparents) and cousin issu de germain (second cousin). In casual speech, cousin alone is fine.

Léo et moi, on est cousins germains — nos mères sont sœurs.

Léo and I are first cousins — our mothers are sisters.

Great-grandparents and beyond: the prefix arrière-

To go up or down another generation, French prefixes arrière- (literally behind or beyond).

arrière-grand-père / arrière-grand-mère = great-grandfather / great-grandmother
arrière-petit-fils / arrière-petite-fille = great-grandson / great-granddaughter
arrière-arrière-grand-mère = great-great-grandmother (yes, you stack the prefix)

Mon arrière-grand-mère a vécu jusqu'à cent deux ans.

My great-grandmother lived to be a hundred and two.

Elle est arrière-grand-mère depuis le mois dernier — sa première arrière-petite-fille est née en avril.

She's been a great-grandmother since last month — her first great-granddaughter was born in April.

Half-siblings: demi-

The prefix demi- (literally half) marks half-siblings — those who share only one parent.

un demi-frère = a half-brother
une demi-sœur = a half-sister

The prefix demi- is invariable: it stays demi- even before plurals. Mes demi-frères, mes demi-sœurs.

J'ai deux demi-sœurs du côté de mon père.

I have two half-sisters on my father's side.

Mon demi-frère et moi, on a la même mère mais des pères différents.

My half-brother and I have the same mother but different fathers.

In-laws and step-relatives: belle-/beau-

Here is where French differs sharply from English. The prefix beau- (masc.) / belle- (fem.) covers both in-laws and step-relatives. Context decides which is meant — there is no separate vocabulary the way English distinguishes mother-in-law from stepmother.

Term	Possible meanings
le beau-père	father-in-law / stepfather
la belle-mère	mother-in-law / stepmother
le beau-fils	son-in-law / stepson
la belle-fille	daughter-in-law / stepdaughter
le beau-frère	brother-in-law (only — there's no step-brother meaning here in standard usage)
la belle-sœur	sister-in-law
les beaux-parents	parents-in-law (or step-parents collectively)

Ma belle-mère est très gentille — la mère de mon mari, je veux dire.

My mother-in-law is very nice — my husband's mother, I mean.

Sa belle-mère l'a élevé après la mort de sa mère biologique.

His stepmother raised him after his biological mother died.

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If you need to disambiguate, French speakers add a clarifier: ma belle-mère, la femme de mon père (my stepmother, my father's wife) versus ma belle-mère, la mère de ma femme (my mother-in-law, my wife's mother). In writing, beau-père de cœur is sometimes used to mean stepfather affectionately.

For step-siblings specifically, you can sometimes hear demi-frère / demi-sœur used loosely, but strictly speaking demi- implies a shared biological parent. A purely social step-sibling (no shared parent, just blended families) might be called quasi-frère or simply le fils de mon beau-père — there is no established single word.

Marital status: marié, divorcé, veuf, pacsé

These adjectives describe civil status (l'état civil). They agree in gender and number with the subject.

célibataire (invariable) = single (never married, or just unmarried)
marié(e) = married
divorcé(e) = divorced
séparé(e) = separated
veuf / veuve = widower / widow
pacsé(e) = in a PACS (a French civil partnership, Pacte civil de solidarité)

The PACS is a French legal institution — slightly less formal than marriage, more committed than cohabitation. It was created in 1999 and is hugely common among French couples, both same-sex and different-sex.

On n'est pas mariés, on est pacsés depuis trois ans.

We're not married, we've been in a PACS for three years.

Ma grand-mère est veuve depuis dix ans, mais elle a une vie sociale très active.

My grandmother has been a widow for ten years, but she has a very active social life.

Il est divorcé, et il a la garde partagée des enfants.

He's divorced, and he has joint custody of the kids.

Talking about having and raising children

Several verbs cover the parental role, with subtle differences:

avoir des enfants = to have children (the bare fact of having them).
élever des enfants = to raise children (the long process of bringing them up).
être parent de = to be the parent of (formal, often legal).
attendre un enfant / être enceinte = to be expecting / be pregnant.

Ils ont trois enfants, qu'ils ont élevés à la campagne.

They have three children, whom they raised in the countryside.

Ma sœur attend son deuxième enfant pour le mois de juin.

My sister is expecting her second child in June.

Blood relations and chosen family

un lien du sang = a blood relation. The expression evokes biological kinship.
la famille proche = close family, immediate family.
la famille élargie = extended family.
la belle-famille = the in-laws (collectively — your spouse's family).
un parent éloigné = a distant relative.

On n'a pas de lien du sang, mais on se considère comme frères.

We're not blood-related, but we consider ourselves brothers.

Pour Noël, toute la famille élargie se réunit chez ma grand-mère.

For Christmas, the whole extended family gathers at my grandmother's.

Childhood endearments: papa, maman, mamie, tonton

French has a parallel set of affectionate kinship terms, used by children and — crucially — also by adults addressing or referring to their own parents and grandparents. Where an English-speaking adult might shift from Daddy to Dad or my father, French adults often keep papa and maman their whole lives, even in moderately formal contexts.

Endearment	Standard term	Notes
papa	père	used by children and adults; not childish
maman	mère	same — universally normal
papi / papy	grand-père	(informal) grandpa
mamie / mamy	grand-mère	(informal) grandma
tonton	oncle	(informal, mostly children) uncle
tata / tatie	tante	(informal, mostly children) auntie

J'appelle ma mamie tous les dimanches soir.

I call my grandma every Sunday evening.

Tonton Marc arrive demain, il dort à la maison.

Uncle Marc is arriving tomorrow, he's staying at our place.

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Saying papa and maman as an adult sounds completely normal in French — never childish. By contrast, an English-speaking adult saying Mommy or Daddy in a public setting sounds odd. This is one of the clearest register differences between the two languages: French keeps these forms across the lifespan, English reserves them for childhood.

The fixed phrase tel père, tel fils ("like father, like son") is covered in detail on the proverbs page; la fille à son père ("daddy's girl") is another fixed phrase, slightly old-fashioned but still understood. The masculine equivalent fils à papa exists too, but with a strong negative connotation — un fils à papa is a spoiled rich kid riding on his father's connections.

Il a réussi tout seul, ce n'est pas un fils à papa.

He made it on his own — he's not a daddy's boy with connections.

Common mistakes

❌ Ma grande-mère habite à Lyon.

Incorrect — grand- doesn't agree in feminine compounds.

✅ Ma grand-mère habite à Lyon.

My grandmother lives in Lyon.

❌ J'ai deux brothers et une sister.

Incorrect — never code-switch; use frères and sœur.

✅ J'ai deux frères et une sœur.

I have two brothers and a sister.

❌ Mes parents-en-loi sont sympas.

Incorrect — French doesn't translate *in-law* literally.

✅ Mes beaux-parents sont sympas.

My in-laws are nice.

❌ Je suis seul enfant.

Incorrect — *seul* doesn't carry the *only-child* meaning.

✅ Je suis fils unique. / Je suis fille unique.

I'm an only child.

❌ Ma sœur est plus vieille que moi.

Awkward — *plus vieille* sounds blunt about age.

✅ Ma sœur est plus âgée que moi. / Ma sœur aînée.

My sister is older than me. / My older sister.

Key takeaways

The French family lexicon is built from a small core of paired masculine/feminine nouns, extended outward by three productive prefixes — grand- for one generation up or down, arrière- for two or more, demi- for half-siblings, and beau-/belle- for both step- and in-law relations. Birth order is marked with aîné, cadet, benjamin rather than English older/younger. The endearments papa, maman, mamie, papi, tonton, tata stay with French speakers for life and are not childish. And the existence of the PACS as a recognized civil status means pacsé(e) belongs alongside marié(e) and célibataire in any honest description of modern French family life.

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