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Shadowing practice: Talking About Your Family in English - Spoken English Lesson

Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Line 1

Full transcript

  1. Hi, I'm Oli.0:01
  2. Welcome to Oxford Online English.0:03
  3. In this lesson, you can learn how to talk about your family in English.0:05
  4. Do you have a big family?0:10
  5. What do you like doing when you spend time with your family?0:12
  6. Talking about family can be a good way to start a conversation in English.0:16
  7. So it's useful if you know what to say and if you have some questions to ask.0:20
  8. Let's start with something simple.0:26
  9. Part one, introducing your family.0:29
  10. Okay, so let's start with a simple sentence.0:32
  11. There are mmm people in my family.0:36
  12. So, you can say, there are five, there are ten, there are thirty people in my family.0:40
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  1. That's not very hard, but it's not very interesting either.0:49
  2. You should say who these people are.0:53
  3. There are ten people in my family.0:57
  4. I have two sisters, my brother, my uncle Anand, two grandparents and my parents, of course.0:59
  5. There are four people in my family, my wife, my two sons and myself.1:08
  6. Part two, talking about your brothers and sisters.1:15
  7. How many brothers and sisters do you have?1:20
  8. You could say, I have two brothers and one sister.1:23
  9. I just have one sister.1:28
  10. I'm an only child.1:32
  11. Let's make it more interesting by adding more information.1:35
  12. Are your brothers and sisters older or younger?1:40
  13. Where are you in the family?1:43
  14. I have two older brothers and one older sister.1:45
  15. I'm the youngest in the family.1:48
  16. I just have one sister who's five years older than me.1:51
  17. I'm the middle child.1:56
  18. My brother is two years older and I have a younger sister who's finishing university this year.1:58
  19. Part three, talking about your immediate and your extended family.2:04
  20. In English, we sometimes draw a line between your immediate family.2:09
  21. That means you, your husband or wife, your children, parents and brothers and sisters.2:13
  22. Then you have your extended family.2:22
  23. That means aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandparents, grandchildren and so on.2:25
  24. Now you can give more details about the people in your family like this.2:35
  25. My immediate family is quite small because I'm an only child.2:39
  26. My mum is one of five children, so I have a lot of cousins who are kind of like my brothers and sisters.2:46
  27. There are six people in my immediate family, my parents, my brother and his wife, my sister and me.2:52
  28. I have a lot of other relatives, but they live in Canada, so we don't see them often.3:00
  29. Part four, talking about your children.3:05
  30. Do you have children?3:10
  31. Let's see what you can say.3:12
  32. I have three kids, two girls and a boy.3:15
  33. We have a newborn son.3:19
  34. We have one daughter and my wife's expecting our second child.3:22
  35. As always, you should add details to make your answers longer and more interesting.3:28
  36. I have three kids, two girls and a boy.3:34
  37. Our eldest daughter has just started secondary school and the two younger ones are still in primary school.3:38
  38. We have a newborn son.3:44
  39. He's just three weeks old now, so we're still getting used to things.3:46
  40. We have one daughter and my wife's expecting our second child.3:50
  41. We don't know if it's a boy or a girl, but we'll find out in three months.3:55
  42. Part five, talking about your relationship with your family.4:00
  43. Finally, let's add some information about how often you see your family and what you like to do together.4:04
  44. For example, I'm very close to my family.4:11
  45. We have lunch together every weekend.4:15
  46. I see my older brother once a week.4:18
  47. We play tennis or basketball together.4:20
  48. I try to spend as much time as possible with my kids.4:24
  49. What now?4:28
  50. Well, you should know the answer.4:29
  51. Add more details.4:31
  52. Let's look.4:33
  53. I'm very close to my family.4:34
  54. We have lunch together every weekend at my grandmother's house.4:36
  55. She always cooks something delicious.4:40
  56. I see my older brother once a week.4:43
  57. We play tennis or basketball together.4:45
  58. I don't see my other brother so often because he lives overseas, although we talk on Skype every so often.4:48
  59. I try to spend as much time as possible with my kids.4:55
  60. We play cards, we watch films, or we go to the park if the weather's nice.4:58
  61. Okay, part six, making a longer answer.5:03
  62. Now, you should be able to make a longer answer talking about your family.5:07
  63. You should be able to talk about your relatives, your brothers and sisters, your children, if you have any, and your relationship with your family.5:11
  64. Let's look at a sample answer.5:21
  65. There are five people in my immediate family, although my extended family is quite large.5:25
  66. I have two sisters, both younger, so I'm the oldest child.5:30
  67. I don't have kids yet, but I'd like to have a big family one day.5:35
  68. I see my parents and my sisters quite often because we all live near each other, although I don't see my other relatives that much.5:39
  69. Okay, could you make an answer like this?5:47
  70. Let's look at one more sample answer first.5:50
  71. I come from a big family.5:54
  72. I'm the fifth child and I have three brothers and one sister.5:56
  73. They're all close to each other in age, but there's a big gap between them and me.5:59
  74. I don't have children, but I have lots of nieces and nephews.6:04
  75. I don't see my family often because I live in a different country, but I speak to them regularly, and we all get together once or twice a year, which6:08
  76. is always very noisy, but lots of fun.6:16
  77. What about you?6:20
  78. Try to make a longer answer talking about your family, use the vocabulary and the ideas from the lesson to help you.6:21
  79. Next time you talk about your family in English, hopefully you'll have lots to talk about.6:29
  80. Okay, that's the end of the lesson.6:35
  81. I hope it was useful.6:37
  82. You can see more of our free English lessons on our website, Oxford Online English dot com.6:37
  83. Thanks again for watching.6:44
  84. See you next time.6:45

English Speaking Practice With Oxford Online English's A2 Family Lesson

This clip is a British spoken English lesson from Oxford Online English, where the host Oli teaches you how to talk about your family. He opens with "Hi, I'm Oli." and "Welcome to Oxford Online English." then works through three parts: introducing your family, talking about brothers and sisters, and separating your immediate family from your extended family. At A2 level and 189 words per minute, the pace sits above half the catalogue, so this suits learners who can already follow simple sentences and want to build speed.

Because it's a teaching lecture rather than a conversation, every sentence is a model you can lift straight into your own speech for english speaking practice. Oli builds vocabulary in layers, moving from "There are ten people in my family." to comparisons like "I have two older brothers and one older sister." Rehearsing sentence patterns like these, rather than decoding a fast exchange between two speakers, is what makes a lecture format useful practice.

The Language in This Family Vocabulary Lesson: Shadow This Line by Line

Three lines stand out for pronunciation work. Oli keeps his sentences short and evenly stressed, which is typical of a prepared lecture rather than natural conversation, so you get a clean, repeatable model of British rhythm before you try faster material.

  • "I'm the middle child." Three words after the contraction, practise linking "I'm" straight into "the" without a pause, since that's exactly how Oli says it.
  • "My immediate family is quite small because I'm an only child." Two clauses joined by "because", useful for hearing where the stress falls on "small" before the reason starts.
  • "That means aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandparents, grandchildren and so on." A run of eight nouns with almost no pause between them, and two of the words, nephews and nieces, are flagged as rare in this recording, so isolate them before attempting the full line.

How to Shadow This British English Pronunciation Practice Lecture, Line by Line

Work through the lesson in the order Oli built it, since each part adds one layer of vocabulary on top of the last.

  • Warm up on lines 1 and 2, "Hi, I'm Oli." and "Welcome to Oxford Online English.", to match the host's greeting rhythm before the lesson content starts.
  • On line 15, "There are ten people in my family.", repeat it five times, then swap in your own family's number to make the pattern yours.
  • Pair line 27, "I'm the youngest in the family.", with line 29, "I'm the middle child.", back to back, since both share the same "I'm the ..." pattern and let you hear the stress shift.
  • Close on line 35, the long list of relatives, splitting it in half at "cousins," so you build up to saying "nephews" and "nieces" cleanly before attempting the full sentence at speed.
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