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Real Easy English

Easy level

Talking about family trees

Episode 260724 / 24 Jul 2026

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Phil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about family trees – grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and other members of your wider family. Learn to talk about your ancestors, which of your relatives you are closest to, and learn some practical tips on how to look up your own family tree!

Vocabulary

close with / close to
seeing regularly and friendly with

family tree
diagram or image which shows members of your wider family and their connections to each other

ancestors
relatives from a long time ago

look up
find out information

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Transcript

Phil
Hello, I'm Phil.
 
Georgie
And I'm Georgie.
 
Phil
Welcome to Real Easy English. Remember, you can find the vocabulary from this episode and test yourself with a free worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglish.com. Hi Georgie, how are you?
 
Georgie
I'm very well, thank you, Phil. How are you?
 
Phil
I'm really good. Today we're going to talk about our families and particularly our extended families. Georgie, do you have a big family?
 
Georgie
I don't actually. I have my two parents, a sister and then outside of that, my family is quite small. I've got one aunt, two uncles, and only one of my uncles has children, so I don't have many cousins. What about you? Do you have a big family?
 
Phil
Actually, my family is probably similar. I've got... I've got a brother, and then I've got two aunts, three uncles. I've got... Well, I've got three cousins that I know and a cousin somewhere lost in Australia.
 
Georgie
Oh wow! Interesting. So, we both have quite small extended families. Do you see yours much?
 
Phil
Usually only at times, like at Christmas I'll often see especially my uncles and my aunts. I see them fairly regularly. My cousins – yeah, often Christmas or New Year or something like that.
 
Georgie
Same with me, really. Growing up, my uncle, who has children who are my cousins, they lived quite far away, so it was similar. We only really saw them at Christmas and times like that. And nowadays I only really see my extended family at events like weddings and, sadly, funerals. I'd probably like to see them more. But this is life.
 
Phil
OK. Georgie, what about your grandparents? Have you been close with your grandparents?
 
Georgie
Yeah. So, sadly, I don't have any grandparents left. They've all died, but I was really close with particularly my grandmothers. Both of them lived quite close to me, so that was really nice. I could spend a lot of time with them. They were big personalities – really funny, really loving, caring. And yeah, I was really close with them. What about you?
 
Phil
Yeah, I think for me it's kind of similar to your story, really. I don't have any grandparents now, but when I was younger, the two grandparents that were still alive then, I was quite close to. I used to see my granddad every week. He used to come and do the shopping for my mum, and I'd see my grandma quite regularly as well. Yeah, I was quite close with them when I was younger.
 
Georgie
To talk about our extended families, we often look at family trees. That's like a diagram that shows your family history. Have you researched your family tree?
 
Phil
I personally haven't researched my family tree, but other people in my family have researched it quite a lot, so I can see the bits of my family going back lots of generations – going back to Scotland, to Ireland, to Norway, to Armenia and places like this.
 
Georgie
Wow. So, your ancestors are from all over the world, it sounds like?
 
Phil
Quite a few places, yeah.
 
Georgie
Yeah, I also have not researched my family tree, but I really would like to because I do know that my great grandmother was Italian and my great grandfather was from the US, so I would love to, kind of, find some family members from those countries and maybe become close with them. I think that would be really interesting to, kind of, understand more about my history.
 
Phil
If you want to know more about your family history, I think you can often look it up. You can... you can look it up in records in government offices, but also I think there's a lot of websites where you can look things up now and find... find out your family history – find out about your ancestors.
 
Georgie
Yes. Well, actually, there is a story that my family tells that I'm not sure is true, but one of my ancestors apparently has a connection to royalty – a big event in history. But again, I don't know if it's true, so I'd love to look it up and find out the facts. I think that would be good.
 
Phil
OK. Let's recap the vocabulary that we've looked at in this episode, starting with close. If you're close with or close to a family member, then it's someone whom you see a lot and you get on well with.
 
Georgie
Your family tree is a diagram or image which shows your family history.
 
Phil
Your ancestors are your relatives from a long time ago.
 
Georgie
Lots of people like to look up their ancestors. If you look something up, you try to find out information – for example, by searching online or reading books.
 
Phil
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. We'll be back next week with another episode in easy English.
 
Georgie
And if you want to learn to talk more about your family, we have a collection of episodes all about this topic. Go to bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Phil
Bye for now!
 
Georgie
Goodbye! 

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