How Many Brothers or Sisters Do You Have? French Examples

Here’s how you ask about brothers, sisters and other family in French.

Watch the video as many times as you need, until you feel you can give the French translations as we go!

Now we can see what we’ve learned. Look at the English and see if you can provide the French for these words:

Part 1:

Do you have any children?	Show Vous avez des enfants?
I have no children.	Show Je n’ai pas d’enfants.
I have a son.	Show J’ai un fils.
I have two sons.	Show J’ai deux fils.
I have a daughter.	Show J’ai une fille.

Part 2:

Do you have any brothers or sisters?	Show Vous avez des frères ou des sœurs?
I have one brother.	Show J’ai un frère.
I have two sisters.	Show J’ai deux sœurs.
I have three brothers.	Show J’ai trois frères.
I have four sisters.	Show J’ai quatre sœurs.

“To Have” in French

In these examples, we have used two phrases, ‘j’ai‘ and ‘vous avez,’ which both include parts of a type of word that we call a verb (‘ai‘ and ‘avez‘). The ‘j’ is a shortened version of the French word for “I,” which in its full form would be ‘je.’ When used before a vowel, this becomes ‘j’.’ ‘Vous’ is the French for you.

Verbs are words that describe an action, in this case the idea of ‘having.’

Verbs are often used with words such as “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “we”, or “they”.

For example, you can say “I have”, “you have”, “he has”, “we have” or “they have” in English. Notice that in English, “have” sometimes becomes “has”, in the same way that ‘j’ai‘ has become ‘vous avez‘.

“I have” and “I do not have”

In French, “I have” is ‘j’ai.’

To make it a negative statement with ‘not’ it becomes ‘je n’ai pas.’

You don’t have to worry about the English word ‘do,’ this is a quirk of English and isn’t present in the French equivalent.

So, “I have,” or “I do have” are all simply translated to ‘j’ai‘ in French.

“I don’t have,” or “I do not have” are both simply ‘je n’ai pas‘ in French.

Asking a Question in French

In the first example, we see how to ask “Do you have any children?”

In French, ‘Vous avez des enfants?’

This literally means “You have (some) children.”

So this could be a statement, but you can make a statement a question in French by raising the pitch of your voice at the end of the sentence.

Making Plurals in French

You’ll see here that we have some examples of plural nouns. In other words, we have moved from talking about one brother to two, three or four brothers. Notice how in English, if we’re talking about more than one of something, we can add an ‘-s’ to show that.

‘Le frère‘ has become ‘des frères‘ and ‘le sœur‘ has become ‘des sœurs,’ “some brothers” and “some sisters.”

A lot of the time, making plurals in French the same as in English, we add an ‘-s.’ Listen to the video again and you’ll notice that the ‘-s’ in French is not always pronounced, it’s only appeared in the spelling.

Just like in English, there’s lots of exceptions to this rule, which you can learn about in our lesson on French plurals. Otherwise, we’ll point them out as we go!

Meanwhile, the question uses the word ‘des,‘ so we see ‘des sœurs,’ “some sisters,” for example in the phrase ‘Vous avez des frères ou des sœurs?‘ So, the French phrase literally reads: “You have some brothers or some sisters?” You don’t have to worry about English words like “do” or “any,” simply follow the French constructions.

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