Learning Spanish opens the door to rich cultures and vibrant communities. One foundational step in your language journey is understanding how to talk about family members in Spanish.
Whether you’re introducing your family or chatting about your loved ones, these terms will help you connect and communicate more effectively. Let’s dive into the essential vocabulary for family in Spanish.
Listen to the episode along with the article to understand the nuances of these words and to learn how to pronounce them.
Family members in Spanish
Here are some of the most common words you’ll need to talk about your family in Spanish:
- padre father
- madre mother
- hermano brother
- hermana sister
- marido husband
- mujer wife
- esposo/a spouse
- hijo son
- hija daughter
Let’s check out some examples using these words in context:
- Vivo en Zamora con mi esposo y mi padre. I live in Zamora with my spouse and my father.
- Soy de Colombia, pero mi hijo es de Estados Unidos. I am from Colombia, but my son is from the United States.
Introducing your family in Spanish
When you’re ready to introduce your family, you can use the phrase este es… for males and esta es… for females. For example:
- Este es mi padre. This is my father.
- Esta es mi madre. This is my mother.
If you want to say someone’s name, you use the phrase se llama:
- Mi padre se llama Juan Antonio. My father’s name is Juan Antonio.
- Mi madre se llama María Isabel. My mother’s name is María Isabel.
Talking about your family in Spanish
To describe your family in Spanish, you might start with a general statement and then introduce individual members:
- Esta es mi familia. This is my family.
- Tengo una familia grande. I have a large family.
From there, you can introduce each person using the vocabulary we’ve covered:
- Mi padre se llama Carlos. My father’s name is Carlos.
- Mi madre se llama Ana. My mother’s name is Ana.
- Este es mi marido, Pedro. This is my husband, Pedro.
- Esta es mi mujer, Laura. This is my wife, Laura.
That’s all for this article!
Understanding the family structure is vital when learning about family in Spanish. Family bonds are very close in many Spanish-speaking cultures, and large extended families are common. Knowing how to talk about your family members in Spanish will help you connect on a deeper level with Spanish-speaking people.
Integrating these terms into your daily practice will improve your language skills and deepen your understanding of Spanish-speaking cultures. If you have more than one sibling and would like to learn the numbers in Spanish, don’t miss the next episode!
For now, happy Coffee Breaking!
29 thoughts on “Family members in Spanish – A basic vocabulary list”
This is great I love it
lo mejor!!! besitos de Romania!
i love it!very interesting.keep on going!and what is the word family in spanish?
muchas gracias, amigos. grande bessitos para kara. love it, love it, love it!
Hey
Just a quick question about this lesson, I’ve learnt beofre that mujer means woman, las mujeres the woman. I though esposa was wife?
Thanks for the lessons their enjoyable and easy to understand.
Greg
Las mujeres is “the women”.
LA mujer is “the woman”.
Also, esposa is spouse.
Amazing….thank you soooo much…
you guys are doing a great job
This was so great i really enjoyed it and want to hear more.
ikr kiara ikr
Can you cut down on the music it gets very mundane.If you do you will have more time for teaching. Keep up the lessons they are great.
Please don’t cut down the music…..I love it!. It gets me into the swing of CBS. I bee-bop around to it and sing along with it, then I’m lista a aprender con Mark and Kara!
Found this site and tried a couple of lessons and thought they were great but now I can’t access them at all. I just keep getting a ‘file not found’ message. How can I sort this out?
I have been trying to use the spanish lesson 5 and I keep getting the prompt saying file not found, have these files been removed? I enjoyed the first 4 lessons.
I am living in Canada but am moving to the Turks and Caicos and have some Spanish friends there. This has been a great way to learn and I really enjoy the lessons! I look forward to the next ones! Gracias!
you say the word for ‘wife’ is ‘mujer’ but that also means ‘woman’, right? i was wondering about ‘esposa’ doesn’t that mean ‘wife’?
this is very helpfully stuff, somewhat easier than class.
very helfully so far, better than in class.
I know this. Esposa and mujer both mean wife. My son married a Chilean girl and all her family talked about her being his mujer, which left him falling over with laughter as it sounds so disrespectful in English. On the other hand she is learning English and falls over laughing at all our please and thankyous. “Stop being so painfuly polite”, she hissed at us when we were splatering out Spanish with them. “You’re sounding weird!”
I like the music at the start – people who don’t like it can skip it, but it makes me smile and look forward to the lesson. I found it really helpful that this lesson had a long piece on how to pronounce short ‘r’, even if the trick/method was unorthodox!
This podcast is better than others for explaining and practising the formal/informal distinction, particularly with regard to conjugating verbs.
it was amazing. Im trying to listen this podcast 2 in every day lol muy gracias. Haha actually it was pretty fun cuz of ‘h’ prononciation haha
EXELLENT!!! It’s realy exellent! I’m impressed!!! I’m Russian and I can learn Spanish through practising English. Cool!
I love it it is cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
Hi Mark and Kara, i am going thru my Spanish from the start again. I am picking up things i missed or had forgotten. Often when you start the podcast, you will say a greeting or pre amble of some nature that often i don’t hear.
About 3 years ago i purchased the platinum edition, however, i cannot trace it anymore. I bought it in order to get podcast texts etc. 18 mnths or so ago, we did the same for french. Now the French is all i can find. Is there any way that you can search records for proof of purchase?
I really enjoy your podcasts. I hope you can help.
Freddy Sparkes.
Apologies for the slow reply, Fred. Please get in touch with us via our Helpdesk or email support [at] radiolingua.com and we’ll get you sorted out.
My student, Patrick, says this is absolutely amazing for learning Spanish!
Hey, my name is Malak. I am from Germany and I love that I found coffee break Spanish
At first, I tried an app, but it didn’t keep me motivated enough to keep going and keep learning but listening to these podcast has really helped me. I am always writing the stuff down always speaking after you and trying to get it right I don’t know if I’m the only one in 2025 listening to these podcasts, but I’m really enjoying them. I know it’s been a long time since these have been uploaded, but I want to thank you for this.
Although I have one question about the plus to the podcasts can you give me a little information about it? What do I get if I buy it?
Hello Malak, we’re so glad to hear that you’re enjoying Coffee Break Spanish!
To answer your question, subscribing to the premium version of Coffee Break Spanish gives you access to a range of additional resources that can take your learning to the next level. It includes downloadable lesson notes and transcripts, bonus audio content, exercises and quizzes. Find out more about the Premium version of Coffee Break Spanish Season 1.
We hope you continue to enjoy the series!
Coffee Break Languages team