En resumen (the short version)
- In Spanish, the masculine plural often means a mixed group: mis tíos can be your uncle and your aunt together.
- In Spain you'll hear mi chico or mi chica for a boyfriend or girlfriend, la familia política for your in-laws and los yayos for grandparents.
- To describe your family, use me llevo bien con… (I get on with…), me parezco a… (I look like…) and me llevo dos años con… (there are two years between us).
✌🏼 ¡Hola aventurero!
Sunday lunch in Spain. A long table, three generations, everyone talking at once, and somebody's abuela making sure you have a second plate 😄
Family comes up in conversation in Spain all the time. So in this post you'll get the family vocabulary in Spanish you actually need, plus the words people in Spain really use, which aren't always the ones in your textbook.
The family words you'll use most
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| la familia | the family |
| la madre / el padre | mother / father |
| el hermano / la hermana | brother / sister |
| el abuelo / la abuela | grandfather / grandmother |
| el nieto / la nieta | grandson / granddaughter |
| el tío / la tía | uncle / aunt |
| el primo / la prima | cousin |
| el sobrino / la sobrina | nephew / niece |
| el hijo / la hija | son / daughter |
| el hijo único / la hija única | only child |
See how most of them come in pairs? Change -o to -a and you've changed male to female. The big exception is madre and padre, which are two completely different words.
When "uncles" means uncle and aunt
Teacher bit 🤓 When a group has both men and women in it, Spanish uses the masculine plural. With family words, that changes what the plural means:
| Spanish | What it can mean | Example |
|---|---|---|
| los padres | parents (mother and father) | Mis padres viven en Escocia. |
| los hermanos | brothers and sisters | Somos tres hermanos: dos chicas y un chico. |
| los tíos | uncles and aunts, or an uncle and an aunt | Este finde vienen mis tíos. |
| los abuelos | grandparents | Mis abuelos tienen un huerto. |
| los hijos | children (sons and daughters) | ¿Tienes hijos? |
| los primos | cousins, boys and girls | Tengo un montón de primos. |
So mis tíos could be two uncles, two aunts, or one of each. If you need to be exact, just say mi tío y mi tía.
How people in Spain really say it
Textbooks give you el novio and los abuelos. Those are correct, but in Spain you'll hear these all the time too:
| What you'll hear | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| mi chico / mi chica | my boyfriend / my girlfriend | Voy a cenar con mi chica. |
| mi pareja | my partner (married or not) | Mi pareja es de Málaga. |
| mi mujer / mi marido | my wife / my husband | Mi marido cocina mejor que yo. |
| la familia política | your in-laws | Este finde comemos con la familia política. |
| los suegros | your parents-in-law | Mis suegros son majísimos. |
| el yayo / la yaya | grandad / grandma (common in some regions) | Los domingos comemos en casa de la yaya. |
| el tito / la tita | uncle / auntie (affectionate) | ¡Mira, ha venido la tita! |
| el peque / la peque | the little one, the youngest | El peque tiene tres años. |
La familia política is a good one to know. It has nothing to do with politics: it's everyone you're related to through marriage.
In Spain, adults usually say mi madre and mi padre when they talk about their parents, and mamá and papá when they talk to them. Mi mamá sounds more Latin American, or like a small child 🙂
Gemelos are identical twins, and mellizos are twins who aren't identical. Lots of people say gemelos for both, so if you use mellizos correctly, you'll impress people 😉
Two surnames, and why
If you've ever filled in a form in Spain, you'll have seen two boxes: primer apellido (first surname) and segundo apellido (second surname).
People in Spain have two surnames, one from each parent. Traditionally, it's the father's first surname followed by the mother's first surname, but these days parents can choose the order.
So if Carmen García López and Javier Martín Ruiz have a daughter called Sara, she'll usually be Sara Martín García. And women in Spain don't change their surnames when they get married.
To talk about a whole family, Spanish uses los + the surname, with no -s on the end: Esta noche cenamos con los García (We're having dinner with the Garcías tonight).
Describing your family
A list of names is fine, but it's the details that start a conversation. These four phrases do most of the work:
| What you want to say | Spanish | In English |
|---|---|---|
| How you get on | Me llevo genial con mi hermana. | I get on really well with my sister. |
| The age gap | Me llevo dos años con mi hermano. | There are two years between me and my brother. |
| Who you look like | Me parezco mucho a mi madre. | I look a lot like my mum. |
| Who someone takes after | Mi hijo ha salido a su padre. | My son takes after his dad. |
Teacher bit: llevarse does two jobs here. Me llevo bien con… is how you get on, and me llevo dos años con… is the age gap. The rest of the sentence tells you which one.
For older and younger, people in Spain usually say mayor and pequeño: mi hermano mayor (my older brother), mi hermana pequeña (my younger sister). For what people are like, you'll find lots of words in personality adjectives in Spanish.
Su can mean his, her, their or your (with usted). So su hermana could be his sister, her sister or their sister. When it's not clear, people in Spain just say who they mean: la hermana de Pablo.
A chat about family
Two friends, one phone full of photos:
Mis sobrinos is the masculine plural again: one nephew and one niece. And son dos terremotos (literally "they're two earthquakes") is how people in Spain describe kids with a lot of energy.
Try it this week
Introduce three people in your family
Say one sentence about each, out loud, using a phrase from the "Phrases for describing your family" table: Me llevo tres años con mi hermano. Me parezco a mi padre. Me llevo genial con mi prima.
Describe one family photo
Pick a photo on your phone and say who's in it: Esta es mi prima Sarah. Este es su marido. Y estos son sus hijos.
Ask someone about their family
Next time you chat in Spanish, ask ¿Tienes hermanos? and follow it up with ¿Os lleváis bien? (Do you get on?)
If you're putting together a few sentences about yourself, there's more help in how to talk about yourself in Spanish.
Recap ✨
- The masculine plural often means a mixed group: mis padres, mis tíos, mis primos.
- In Spain you'll hear mi chico or mi chica, la familia política, los yayos and la tita.
- Adults say mi madre and mi padre, and use mamá and papá when talking to them.
- People in Spain have two surnames, and a whole family is los + surname: los García.
- Describe your family with me llevo bien con…, me llevo dos años con… and me parezco a…
Family is one of the everyday topics in my Roadmaps, with games, speaking prompts and cheat sheets so you can use these words in conversation, not just recognise them 🗺️
Now a fun one 👀 If you were Spanish, what would your two surnames be? Try it in Spanish: Me llamaría… Cuéntame in the comments!
Lucía ✨
Lucía · Linguist, translator, Spanish teacher and author of the Visual Spanish Grammar Book.
Come and learn Spanish with me and other aventureros like yourself at skool.com/learnspanish 🎉