this is an all ears English podcast episode 1894. you're like a sister
to me go beyond family textbook English vocabulary
welcome to the all ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times are you feeling stuck
with your English we'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not
Perfection with your American hosts Lindsay McMahon the English Adventurer and Michelle
Kaplan the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City USA and to get
your transcripts delivered by email every week go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe
in your textbook you learned the basics like father mother brother sister or
cousin but today we'll show you how to take your family vocabulary to the next
level to really show people what they mean to you in English listen in today
Michelle how's it going hey hey Lindsey good good how are you I am great I have a question for you
all right what's the question all right would you say that you're close to your family yes
yes yeah so yeah I would say I am too you know I go I kind of Wax and Wane on that there are
periods where I'm close to them and I call them every week and then there are seasons where I
call them once every two or three weeks but we're pretty close overall I would say yeah that's good
that's good yeah I like it I don't always like like for example I don't talk to my brother on
the phone all the time but I feel very close to him but like yeah you know then we'll have
like a really good conversation it's mostly just like very sarcastic right right right you've told
us before that your brother's really funny he's always joking was that true when you're growing
up too did you guys always joke together yeah well and he just always like made me like just do crazy
things you know like just like say like yeah just say crazy things and whatever I don't know
we just have like a relationship with we don't we don't see many serious things so it's fun that's
awesome I love that I love that yeah what are we getting into today well you know then there's
there's you know the word family it can also mean kind of what you want like I don't think that your
family what is it there's some expression that's like oh there's family you chew you you don't
choose yeah yeah yeah right there's the family that you have by birth and then the family you
choose or something right right so right I mean so do you have anyone who's like family to you
yeah I would say I do you know I have people close to me you know close friends
that I would say are like family or people that I've known my whole life and they're
kind of you know unofficial members of the family right yeah yeah right like I have
um I'm sure I've talked about them before so my two best girlfriends from growing up are Jamie
and Ally and like I literally grew up with them like Jamie is six months younger than me and our
moms were friends when they had uh that when they had one like I knew her like I don't I
don't remember a world without her and like Ally too really so like it's like the three of us so
um I would say they're like family to me yeah that's amazing and you guys have stayed close
over the years through college through life do they live near you or where do they live one of
them well one of them lives like probably like an hour and a half away and then one of them is back
like at home in the Maryland area so but you know it's like one of those things where you you know
if I haven't seen them in a while I do I do I mean I spoke to both of them recently but like yeah if
I haven't seen them in a while then you I I just like feel like a kid again oh that's awesome so
they're kind of like family to you they definitely are absolutely I love that I love that so today
what are we teaching our listeners okay well we're gonna talk about this kind of expression to
say like family to you right so yeah we're gonna talk about how to describe when somebody is like
so on episode 721 uh was the best way to talk about your best friend in English so we spoke
about the word bestie um and some other phrases there uh so head on over to that one as well to
listen to yeah guys go back and find that episode you can come back to our blog allersenglish.com
and type 721 into the search bar and make sure you hit follow so you don't miss any of
these awesome episodes yeah the word bestie that's definitely you know yeah I love that
one very slangy isn't it Michelle yeah yeah yeah so my son um I sometimes I'll call him
my bestie or I would like even though he's my son yeah so but when he was a baby he said he
couldn't say bestie so he would say Betty oh that's so cute yeah so even now I'll be like
you're my Betty yeah that's cute yeah so so well that kind of leads into my question it's like
can you use like uh something to me like with a family member can you use this with your family oh
well about your family well it's a good question right it depends on the words you choose you know
if you say they're like family to me that doesn't make sense because they are your family right
literally but we can get more specifics right and how could we Michelle for our listeners well you
could say something like she's like a sister to me right so again so this is the construction we're
kind of focusing on is like a blank to me like family to me right so that's really useful um you
know for talking about people who like you know you wouldn't really say that like family about
about your family member but um like my cousin um I'm very very close with my cousin so I might
say oh she's like a sister to me exactly like for example my niece doesn't have any siblings
but she has cousins that I think she spends a lot of time with right so they are kind of like
brothers or sisters to her even though they're they're just her cousins exactly the same thing
right right right so if you get more specific you can use it about family members to kind of
change the yes to change like one degree closer right one degree closer right right right right
um so and like I said you know I another one would be um I like the Jamie and Ally I was telling you
about I'm also very close with their mothers and some of them that's cool some of my mom's friends
not not just them but like my mom has this like a very tight-knit group of friends and honestly
I would say like you know I grew up with them and I would say like oh like they're like about one of
them I might say she's like a second mother to me oh that's amazing yeah like a second mother or a
second father right so that's another construction you guys can use I know for our listeners it's
super important to be able to talk about the people close to us right Michelle this is a
connection skill right here I mean what do you think that this this kind of construction these
Expressions what do you think they do oh my gosh they give people context about who you are and you
know what matters in your life and who's in your life right so they kind of they build you out as
a person you know so sometimes at work especially we just we think we're just doing business with
a business person but we're doing business with a whole person who has a whole life and relationship
so if we know about those things a little bit we can get more done and just have more fun right
enjoy that connection more right Michelle right right right I also think it can be like pretty
flattering like you know it well actually I've had I thought of this like with my mom's friends
I remember recently I saw one of my mom's friends and she said something like oh I'm like your
second mom that's what she said and you know so she was she was you know saying that is not
using that construction but I think it can be very flattering flattering for you or for her when she
said that when she said that to me I felt I felt flattered okay um I'm like oh you know like or
um like when I like Mike because my cousin and I like I said we're very close you know if she
says to me something like oh like we've said it to each other oh you're like a sister mate to me and
um and I to me like that's like very flattering like I feel like oh that relationship is kind of
elevated too yeah I know something close Yeah because sometimes we don't know where we stand
with people we don't know how they think of us we think oh it could just be another friend or
another cousin right but then if you can express to someone like where what they mean to you that
can be really powerful guys right or like what you said about the context if I'm telling you
about my cousin and I'm like oh yeah she's like oh we're so close she's like a sister to me you
know oh I love that guys it's so much better than just saying sister brother cousin uncle
right it's so much more it's yes showing what you really care about yeah right right right I love it
okay Michelle what else do we need to know then all right well so we have some other
useful expression these are kind of silly Lindsay have you heard it oh my gosh yeah of course I've
heard this this is kind of fun I was thinking about this expression the other day for whatever
reason okay guys here it is so this one is fun and it's saying the same kind of idea uh so the
expression is brother from another mother brother from another mother I feel like guys say this more
than girls what do you think yeah yeah I guess so I don't even know these are just so ridiculous I
don't even know do people even say these anymore but these are these are like funny ones to teach
yeah they're kind of fun to teach you might hear them in songs or movies yeah um so you guys can
decide if you want to use it but you might hear it right what would be a sample sentence for our
listeners well you could say something like I've known him since we were in preschool he's like
my brother from another mother just because it Rhymes so it's so fun to say yeah exactly
exactly or there's another one Lindsay have you heard this one yeah sister from another mister
exactly exactly so yeah so for example Patricia is my oldest friend seriously she's my sister
from another mister that's so good that's so good and then another way and this expression coming up
now guys is something we can say to pull someone in right you know there may be someone kind of
not technically in your family right this is you know this is someone that we have in the family
that I'm in now my my family um that someone is not necessarily related by by birth right they're
not blood related but they're a close friend and they're always included in holidays invited to
Thanksgiving and what would you say to that person if they they're not sure if they're invited to a
family event oh you could say oh of course you can come your family exactly right I love it of
course you can join us for dinner your family so good right right so I think these are really
uh well those were your family is a more like I think that one said more commonly the other two
are kind of silly but just yeah I agree yeah the other two are kind of just sort of like Bros kind
of saying that right right it's just a joke it's just a joke um yeah but yeah like so I think that
I think uh those are just funny ones but your family you could really use and then there's
this one other one do you remember I don't know if when you like you used this but there was Lila's
do you remember that no I I think I might have missed the era of this this was mostly written
out in like yearbooks oh no I missed that oh my gosh no yeah so it stands for I love you like a
sister okay yeah and I remember like people used to say that to each other like Lila's or like just
like write it out so oh that's okay oh man the days of yearbooks what else what a funny thing
right it's the last day of school everyone gets their yearbook in American culture this is like
middle school high school right Michelle and you go around asking your friends to sign it sometimes
you might ask your crush to sign your yearbook or like someone you barely know to sign your
yearbook and it was all about how how much do you have signed in your yearbook it's just so funny
okay let's do a role play for our listeners what are we doing here okay so uh we are
our childhood friends and we're not going to use the silly silly ones okay we'll use the
more real ones right yes all right here we go Michelle I need to ask you a favor can I sleep
over at your house my AC broken it's so hot of course Lindsay you're like a sister to me it's
too hot to stay at your place thanks Michelle your family I appreciate it nice okay cool all right
so what did we say we used a couple of these kind of better ones what'd you say yeah well uh I said
you're like a sister to me right so you're asking me for a favor and it's like you know if like
you know somebody in your family were to ask you to stay with you it's like
oh well I'm well I don't know it depends on the family relationship but the idea here is like
it's almost like oh you don't even need to ask like you're like family just come over
you know exactly and then I said it too I said thanks Michelle your family I appreciate it so
this is nice it's really affirming we have to have these conversations in life guys because
we have to understand where we stand with people right right right exactly so I think it's good
for like elevating the relationship showing somebody like how much you care or just telling
somebody else like illustrating uh explaining your relationship uh with a person to someone
who's not in that relationship you're telling a story right like so instead of just saying like
oh yeah like my my cousin Jane you know like my cousin my cousin Jane called and she my cousin's
name isn't Jane but like my cousin Jane called and we were we were talking for five hours blah
blah blah like yeah I could if I said oh my cousin Jane called she's like a sister to me
we were just talking you know like it kind of gets more of a picture yeah also right because
sometimes we're not that close to our cousins right right it just depends sure yeah cousins
are like a whole a whole thing really close or you have no relationship it's just like kind of
that might be something that's actually kind of different in the United States versus some of our
listeners countries I mean I have some cousins on my dad's side that I've only met once in my
whole life Wow like that I don't really know very well but vice versa my my niece has cousins that
are like brothers and sisters to her so it just depends on you know where these people live how
close is your parent to their parents depends on a lot of things but I think this is really good guys
you know in your conversations you want to know where you stand if someone says this to you you
may want to look at giving more time to them and putting them as a at a higher importance in your
life if you didn't see them in the same way right that's kind of interesting too right Michelle yeah
yeah yeah yeah absolutely I love it yeah so I mean guys I think these are very useful for describing
relationships in a way that sounds like concrete or makes sense to someone by giving a comparison
so use that construction like a blink like a blank it goes Way Beyond what you guys have learned in
your textbook you know brother sister cousin mother we're going Way Beyond that today good
stuff guys if you love aller's English Michelle what should our listeners do to make sure they
don't miss a single episode of the show make sure you follow us ah yes hit follow now guys and we'll
see you back here very soon Michelle have a good one you too bye Lindsay all right take care bye
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