1.Basic personal details
The topic family and personal information appears constantly in everyday communication: when you meet someone, talk about your family, ask about age, residence or origin, speak about a partner, children, brothers and sisters, or fill in simple personal details on a form.
Typical personal details include name, age, place of residence, origin, marital status, family, children, profession and languages.
Depending on the situation, you use du or polite Sie.
2.How to say your name
The most common patterns are Ich heiße ..., Mein Name ist ..., Wie heißt du?, Wie heißen Sie?.
In conversation, Ich heiße ... is especially natural and common.
3.How to talk about age
In German, age uses the verb sein: Ich bin 25 Jahre alt., Er ist 40 Jahre alt., Meine Tochter ist 8 Jahre alt.. Questions: Wie alt bist du?, Wie alt sind Sie?.
In German you say
Ich bin 28 Jahre alt— literally “I am 28 years old” — not “I have 28 years”.
4.Origin and place of residence
For origin, people often use aus + country / city. For residence: in + place. woher asks where someone is from; wo asks where they are or live.
5.Core family vocabulary
| German | Meaning |
|---|---|
die Familie | family |
die Eltern | parents |
die Mutter | mother |
der Vater | father |
die Schwester | sister |
der Bruder | brother |
die Geschwister | siblings |
die Tochter | daughter |
der Sohn | son |
das Kind | child |
die Kinder | children |
die Großmutter | grandmother |
der Großvater | grandfather |
die Großeltern | grandparents |
In everyday speech, more personal forms are also very common: Mama, Papa, Oma, Opa.
6.Singular and plural
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
die Mutter | die Mütter |
der Vater | die Väter |
der Bruder | die Brüder |
die Schwester | die Schwestern |
das Kind | die Kinder |
die Tochter | die Töchter |
der Sohn | die Söhne |
The words Eltern, Geschwister and Großeltern are very often used in the plural: meine Eltern, meine Geschwister, meine Großeltern.
7.How to talk about your family
One of the most useful patterns is Ich habe .... The verb haben is used very often for family relationships.
8.Einen or eine?
After haben, the object is usually in the accusative.
| Nominative | After haben |
|---|---|
der Bruder | einen Bruder |
der Sohn | einen Sohn |
die Schwester | eine Schwester |
die Tochter | eine Tochter |
das Kind | ein Kind |
At A1 it is useful to learn a family word together with its common form after haben.
9.How to say you have no siblings or children
For negation, kein is often used: Ich habe keinen Bruder., Ich habe keine Schwester., Ich habe keine Kinder.. The form of kein changes with gender, number and case.
10.Possession: mein and dein
When talking about family, possessive words are needed very often: mein / meine, dein / deine, sein / seine, ihr / ihre, unser / unsere, Ihr / Ihre.
11.Wer ist das?
When someone points to a person or a photo, people often ask Wer ist das?. The main contrast: Das ist ... for singular, Das sind ... for plural.
12.Marital status
Common words: ledig, verheiratet, geschieden, verwitwet. At A1, ledig and verheiratet are especially important.
13.Partner and spouses
Useful words: der Mann, die Frau, der Ehemann, die Ehefrau, der Partner, die Partnerin. In everyday speech, mein Mann often means “my husband”, and meine Frau means “my wife”.
14.Children and numbers
When talking about children, numbers are used constantly: ein Kind, zwei Kinder, drei Kinder. Typical questions: Haben Sie Kinder?, Wie viele Kinder haben Sie?.
15.Siblings and numbers
With Geschwister, the question wie viele is very useful: Wie viele Geschwister hast du?.
16.Names of family members
A common pattern: Mein Bruder heißt ..., Meine Mutter heißt ..., Meine Kinder heißen .... Singular uses heißt, plural uses heißen.
17.Ages of family members
Typical patterns: Mein Bruder ist 20 Jahre alt., Meine Tochter ist 6 Jahre alt., Meine Eltern sind 60 und 62 Jahre alt.. Questions: Wie alt ist dein Bruder?, Wie alt sind deine Kinder?.
18.Where family members live
The verb is wohnen. Questions: Wo wohnen deine Eltern?, Wo wohnt deine Schwester?.
19.bei + person
The preposition bei appears very often in this topic: bei meinen Eltern, bei meiner Mutter, bei meinem Vater, bei uns.
At A1 these combinations are useful as ready-made frequent patterns.
20.Work and family
Personal details are often combined in one short account. Typical questions: Was macht dein Vater?, Was ist deine Mutter von Beruf?, Wo arbeitet dein Bruder?.
21.Languages in the family
Languages also often belong to personal information. A typical question: Welche Sprachen sprechen Sie?.
22.A simple family story
Several personal details can be joined into a short block. Such information blocks are very typical at A1.
23.Questions with du and Sie
When exchanging personal information, it is important to distinguish du and Sie. du is used with friends, children and many people you know well. Sie is used in more formal situations.
| Informal | Polite |
|---|---|
Wie heißt du? | Wie heißen Sie? |
Wo wohnst du? | Wo wohnen Sie? |
Woher kommst du? | Woher kommen Sie? |
Hast du Kinder? | Haben Sie Kinder? |
Bist du verheiratet? | Sind Sie verheiratet? |
24.How personal are these questions?
Not every grammatically correct question is appropriate in every situation. Questions like Wie alt sind Sie?, Sind Sie verheiratet?, Haben Sie Kinder? can feel personal depending on the context.
Personal details are linguistically simple, but socially they are not always neutral.
In a course, on a form or in a clear introduction situation such questions are often normal. In other situations it is better to keep more distance.
25.Frequent verbs in this topic
Especially important: sein, haben, heißen, wohnen, kommen, arbeiten, sprechen, leben, studieren.
With a small set of verbs you can already express a lot of personal information.
26.Typical sentence patterns
These constructions cover a large part of the A1 topic and can be combined with different family vocabulary.
27.Common mistakes
| Mistake | Incorrect | Correct |
|---|---|---|
haben for age | Ich habe 30 Jahre. | Ich bin 30 Jahre alt. |
nominative after haben | Ich habe ein Bruder. | Ich habe einen Bruder. |
singular with Eltern | Meine Eltern ist in Berlin. | Meine Eltern sind in Berlin. |
mixing ist / sind | — | Das ist meine Mutter. / Das sind meine Eltern. |
mixing wo / woher | — | Wo wohnst du? → in Berlin / Woher kommst du? → aus Spanien |
Eltern is a plural form. wo asks about place; woher asks about origin.
28.Useful collocations
These groups appear very often: meine Familie, meine Eltern, mein Bruder, meine Schwester, mein Mann, meine Frau, meine Kinder, zwei Kinder, keine Kinder, einen Bruder, eine Schwester, aus Deutschland, in Berlin, bei meinen Eltern.
If you treat such combinations as one unit, it becomes easier later to build phrases yourself.
29.Personal details on forms
In simple forms you may see: Vorname, Nachname, Geburtsdatum, Geburtsort, Adresse, Wohnort, Familienstand, Staatsangehörigkeit, Telefonnummer, E-Mail-Adresse.
These words belong to the same topic, even if they sound more formal than everyday conversation. At A1 it is enough to recognise their basic meaning.
30.A simple structure for a family story
A short description works well in this order: who is in the family → where they live → how old they are → what they do → which languages they speak.
This structure helps organise the information logically.
31.Extra words for relatives
After the core vocabulary, these are useful:
| German | Meaning |
|---|---|
die Tante | aunt |
der Onkel | uncle |
die Cousine | female cousin |
der Cousin | male cousin |
die Enkelin | granddaughter |
der Enkel | grandson |
At A1 they are less central than Eltern, Geschwister and Kinder, but they often appear in real speech.
32.Compound words in the family topic
German has many compounds: Großmutter, Großvater, Großeltern, Ehemann, Ehefrau, Familienname. Their meaning is often clear from the parts, for example Groß + mutter → Großmutter. This is a typical feature of German vocabulary.
33.The most important contrasts
| Contrast | Examples |
|---|---|
| singular ↔ plural | mein Bruder ↔ meine Geschwister |
wo ↔ woher | in Berlin ↔ aus Berlin |
du ↔ Sie | Wie heißt du? ↔ Wie heißen Sie? |
haben ↔ sein | Ich habe zwei Kinder. / Ich bin verheiratet. |
These contrasts prevent many typical beginner mistakes.