Asking about someones family: Asking if someone has brothers or sisters

🇫🇷 Sympa is a friendly, casual reaction you'll hear constantly. Fine with friends and colleagues, a bit too relaxed for formal settings.

💬 French asks age with avoir "to have": literally "they have what age?". Swap in Il a quel âge ? "How old is he?" or Elle a quel âge ? "How old is she?".

💬 "My" changes with the noun: mon frère but ma sœur.

💬 The t of vingt is silent here, but the s of ans is too, so it sounds like (van-tahn) because vingt links into ans.

💬 French says age with "have", not "be": il a vingt ans is literally "he has twenty years". Never say il est vingt; reuse it as J'ai trente ans "I'm thirty".

💬 Ans can't be dropped the way English drops "years old": always say quinze ans, not just quinze.

💬 The extra e in l'aînée marks a female eldest; for a man it's l'aîné. Both sound the same, so the spelling only shows in writing.

💬 Alors tacked on the end works like "so" or "then", showing you're drawing a conclusion from what you just heard.

💬 French uses moi here, not je: c'est moi "it's me". The same pattern gives c'est toi "it's you".

💬 En stands in for something already mentioned, here the brothers and sisters, and sits before the verb. French needs it where English can just drop the object: J'en ai deux "I have two".

💬 Tu en as runs together as (tu-ahn-na), with the n of en carrying over into as.

💬 Fils unique literally means "only son", so a woman says Je suis fille unique. No "a" before it, just as with jobs: je suis fils unique.

💬 The l in fils is silent and the s is spoken (feess).

🇫🇷 Ah bon ? is the standard way to show mild surprise and keep someone talking. It's polite interest, not real disbelief.

💬 Chez means "at the home of" and needs no word for house: chez moi "at my place", chez Marie "at Marie's".

🇫🇷 This is light teasing about being an only child, the kind of friendly joke that's normal in casual chat. Laughing along is the expected response.

💬 Y means "there" and goes before the verb, so j'y vais is literally "I there go". Leaving it out sounds incomplete.

💬 The s of plus is pronounced here (ah ploos).

🇫🇷 À plus ! is a casual goodbye among friends and peers; with someone you'd address as vous, use Au revoir.