Family & Relationships

To talk about time with your family in three timeframes: what you did, what you usually do and what you're going to do.

The time words decide the tense: el domingo pasado and ayer take the preterite, normalmente and todos los días the present, and el domingo que viene and mañana take ir a + infinitive. For visitar that gives visité (I visited), visito (I visit) and voy a visitar (I'm going to visit). Keep the accent on visité, and keep the personal a before people in every timeframe: voy a visitar a mis abuelos.

Exam tip: The top language marks in AQA's 90-word task, Pearson's 80-90 and 130-150 word tasks and Pearson's conversation need all three timeframes.

To talk about your family: mi, tu, su and nuestro agree with the family member that follows (mis hermanos), not with the owner.

Mi, tu and su only add -s for the plural (mis primos, tus abuelos); nuestro and vuestro also change for masculine and feminine (nuestra madre, nuestros tíos). Su can mean his, her, their or your (usted or ustedes), so su hermano needs context. Watch the accent: tu madre is "your mother", but tú with an accent means "you".

Ser for what someone is like, estar for how they are at the moment.

Use ser for personality, looks and other traits (es simpático, es alta) and estar for moods and states that can change (está cansada, está contento). Ask yourself "what is she like?" (ser) or "how is she today?" (estar). Some adjectives change meaning: es aburrido means he is boring, está aburrido means he is bored.

Describing family members means changing the adjective ending to match each person.

Adjectives ending in -o have four forms: alto, alta, altos, altas. Most adjectives ending in -e or a consonant change only for the plural (inteligente, inteligentes; joven, jóvenes), but nationalities and -or adjectives add -a: española, trabajadora. For a mixed group, use the masculine plural: mis padres son altos. The usual slip is forgetting the plural after son: mis hermanas son altas, not alta.

How you get on with people: llevarse bien/mal con, pelearse, quererse.

Llevarse bien con means "to get on well with": the pronoun matches the subject (me llevo, te llevas, se lleva) and con introduces the other person. In the plural, nos and se can mean "each other": se quieren (they love each other), nos peleamos (we argue). The common mistake is dropping the pronoun: llevo bien con mi hermano is wrong without me.

Age, hair and eyes take tener, where English uses "to be" or "to have".

Spanish says you "have" years: tengo quince años, never soy quince. Hair and eyes also take tener, with el or los: tiene el pelo corto, tiene los ojos verdes, and the colour agrees with the noun (el pelo rubio, los ojos azules). For height and build, go back to ser: es alto.

To compare family members and friends: más/menos ... que, tan ... como.

Put the adjective between más or menos and que, and make it agree with the person you're describing: mi hermana es más alta que yo. Tan ... como means "as ... as" (tan gracioso como yo). After que and como use yo and tú, not mí and ti. Four comparatives have their own words: mejor (better), peor (worse), and mayor and menor for older and younger (mi hermana mayor).