Lesson 9 - how to talk about your family

Well, well, look at you and give yourself a good ol' pat on the back: It's been quite some time since we've learned how to introduce ourselves in the very first lesson, but here you are, still learning and growing your Luxembourgish vocabulary.

Love them or hate them, our family members are undoubtedly some of the most important people in our lives.  And sometimes, we may want to share a story, or an anecdote about one or several of them – and if we want to do that in Luxembourgish, we need to know what they're called.

While there is no separate vocabulary list for this lesson, we do have another edition of our grammar lessons "Language Basics" ready for you right here. This time, we'll have a look at the verb "to be", learning both its present and past tense forms.

Family Members

Let's start at the very beginning. Here are the Luxembourgish names of your close and somewhat close family members:

the mother -> d'Mamm

the father -> de Papp

the (half) sister -> d'(Hallef) schwëster

the (half) brother -> den Hallefbrudder / de Brudder

the daughter -> d'Meedchen / d'Duechter (Note that Duechter is a bit old-fashioned)

the son -> de Jong / de Bouf / de Fils (the French word fils is used less and less nowadays. Jong is generally the term that you will hear most of the time)

the grandmother -> d'Bom / d'Groussmamm (more affectionate terms include Boma or Bomi. Note that Groussmamm is a bit formal.)

the grandfather -> de Bop / de Grousspapp  (colloquially also Bopa. Note that Grousspapp is a bit formal.)

the great-grandmother / -grandfather -> d'Urgroussmamm / den Urgrousspapp

the aunt -> d'Tatta

the uncle -> de Monni

the godmother -> d'Giedel (colloquially also Giedi, Guedi, or Godi)

the godfather -> de Pätter

the cousin -> de Cousin (masculine) / d'Cousine (feminine)

the stepmother / -father / -child / -sister / -brother -> d'Stéifmamm / de Stéifpapp / d'Stéifkand / d'Stéifschwëster / de Stéifbrudder

The in-laws

If you're married and want to refer to one of your partner's parents, you simply add the prefix Schwéier-. As such:

the mother-in-law -> d'Schwéiermamm

the father-in-law -> de Schwéierpapp

the parents-in-law -> d'Schwéierelteren

For the rest of the family, there are, however, specific terms:

the sister-in-law -> d'Schwéiesch

the brother-in-law -> de Schwoer

the daughter-in-law -> d'Schnauer

the son-in-law -> den Eedem

Introducing someone else or talking about your relatives

This is *name*, my … -> Dat ass de / den / d' …, mäi / meng …