Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Lesson 306. The title of today's lesson
is family is a collective noun. Okay. Let's take a look at the note here.
Don't say the word families when talking about all your own family members.
Everyone in one's family is part of the same family. So that's what we mean by
collective noun. Everybody's included just in the one group, in the one noun. The word
family can be plural if it refers to different families. So sometimes when
students make the mistake, I try to clarify it. Like your family and my
family are two different families. But you know, if you're talking about like
your uncle's your aunts, your cousins, your grandparents, that's all part of the
same family. So in that sense family is singular. It's one family. Yeah. So let's
look at , let's look at some examples here where students might make a mistake.
You know, the first one with the X of course this is wrong. If somebody said my
families are going to visit for Chinese New Year. No. You don't say. Your families
are going to visit. So here's a couple of ways you could say it. My relatives are
going to visit for Chinese New Year. Of course you could say that, or the second
one you could just simply say my family is going to visit for Chinese New Year.
Because it already implies all the relatives whether they are immediate
members of your family like your brothers or sisters or parents or know
if you're married maybe your wife and children or extended family. You know,
like uncles, aunts, cousins and so on. All right. So let's continue. Let's look at
the second part here. If you say you have more than one family, it implies you are
married more than once and had children with different women or husbands. Yes. You
got to be careful. You say all my families. How many families do you have ? How many
times did you marry ? You know, you got one family living in you know, one
country another family in another country or another city
somewhere. So that's what it kind of suggests . So you got to be careful if you say
your families. It actually suggests that you married several times and had
different children with different you know, different spouses. Okay. Let's
continue. Again with the X. This is wrong. So if you say his families are having a
reunion again. No with check, this is right. His family members are having a
reunion. Yes. Of course, you could always say family members to make to make it
clear that you're talking about the individual people in the family. His
relatives are having a reunion. Of course, that's implied family and there's two
example where we actually do use the word families in the plural. Two
different families competed against each other on the game show " Family Feud " Yeah.
that's a really old game show, but that's what they used to have. They used
to have one family on one side and the other family on the other side answering
questions to try to win money. So and they called it family feud, We do say
family feud that's a real term to when two families kind of fight each other
for a very over very long periods of time. When we say family feud. And number...
The second one here poor families cannot afford to live in that neighborhood. So
again, this is an example where you actually do use the word family in the
plural. When you talk about families in general or poor families in general. Okay.
Anyway I hope you got it. I hope hope it's clear Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.