我的家人
Wǒ de jiārén — My Family
Every child wants to talk about the people they love, which makes family the easiest vocabulary in the year to make stick. Students learn six family words and how to point at a photo and say who’s who.
Unit objectives
By the end of this unit, students will be able to:
- Name six family members out loud
- Point at a photo and say 这是我的妈妈 — “This is my mum”
- Understand that 的 marks “my” or “your”
- Answer a simple question about who is in their family
Key vocabulary
Six family words plus the sentence frame that holds them together.
妈妈 爸爸 哥哥 姐姐 弟弟 妹妹 家 这是
The people at home
Six family words
Flashcards with audio, then a puppet family the whole class names together. Doubled sounds like māma and dìdi make these unusually easy to say.
Start Lesson 1This is my family
Students bring or draw a family picture and introduce each person with 这是我的… — the first full sentence of the year.
Start Lesson 2Name one person a day
Call one family member by their Chinese name each day. Children love calling a parent 妈妈 and it costs nobody any effort.
Chinese has a word for every relative
English says “brother” and adds “older” if it matters. Chinese builds the age straight into the word — 哥哥 is specifically an older brother and 弟弟 a younger one, and there is no general word for “brother” at all. It goes much further with aunts, uncles and grandparents, where the exact term depends on whether they’re from your mother’s or your father’s side. Kindergarten only meets the six easy ones, but it’s worth telling children the rest exist — it says a lot about how carefully Chinese families map themselves.
Unit 5 progress check
A light, no-pressure way to see what’s sticking:
- Can your child say 妈妈 and 爸爸 on sight?
- Can they introduce one family member in a full sentence?
- Do they know that 哥哥 and 弟弟 are different?
Families come in every shape — adapt the vocabulary freely to the people actually in your child’s life.