Family & Relationships Vocabulary Quiz
How well do you know the words for family members and relationships in English? Test relatives, marriage terms, household roles and extended family vocabulary across 20 multiple-choice questions at A2–B1 level.
Start the Quiz →What This Quiz Covers
Family and relationships vocabulary is among the first topic areas learners encounter in English, yet many intermediate learners still confuse terms such as nephew and niece, stepmother and mother-in-law, or partner and spouse. This quiz tests the full range of family vocabulary from A2 to B1, covering both the core terms introduced at beginner level and the extended-family and relationship-status words that cause persistent confusion at lower-intermediate stage.
The 20 multiple-choice questions are set in realistic sentence contexts — describing family photos, filling in forms, reading short texts about people's households — so that the words feel embedded in natural usage rather than isolated lists. Each item targets a specific area of family vocabulary, ensuring you practise the distinctions that matter most: generation terms, gender-specific words, in-law relationships, step-family vocabulary, and terms for different household configurations.
By completing this quiz you will discover exactly which areas of family vocabulary are secure and which need more attention, making your further study more targeted and efficient.
What You Will Learn
- Core immediate family terms: the precise meanings of parent, sibling, spouse, child and their gender-specific counterparts (mother/father, sister/brother, wife/husband, daughter/son).
- Extended family vocabulary: grandparent, grandchild, aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew, niece — including which terms are gender-neutral and which are not.
- In-law relationships: mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and the rule for forming these compound nouns in the plural.
- Step-family and blended-family terms: stepmother, stepfather, stepchild, half-brother, half-sister and the difference between step- and half- prefixes.
- Relationship-status and marriage vocabulary: engaged, fiancé/fiancée, married, divorced, widowed, single and how to use them correctly in sentences.
- Household and caregiving roles: breadwinner, homemaker, guardian, carer, foster parent, adoptive parent and what distinguishes each role.
- Informal and colloquial family terms: gran, grandad, mum, dad, sis, bro and when these are appropriate versus their formal equivalents.
- Terms for non-traditional family structures: single parent, co-parent, same-sex couple, partner and the register differences between partner and spouse.
How to Prepare
Before attempting the quiz, it helps to review the distinction between gendered and gender-neutral terms. English has a mix: sibling is gender-neutral while brother and sister are not; cousin is gender-neutral while nephew and niece are not. Knowing which terms carry gender information and which do not will help you answer several questions correctly.
You can build your vocabulary further using the Flash Cards exercise, which lets you drill family vocabulary in spaced repetition mode before moving to quiz conditions. The True or False exercise is also useful for checking whether statements about family relationships are logically correct — a skill this quiz tests directly.
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Frequently Asked Questions
A mother-in-law is the mother of your husband or wife — she becomes part of your family through your marriage. A stepmother is a woman who marries your father after the death or divorce of your biological mother — she becomes part of your family through your parent's remarriage. The key distinction is whose marriage creates the relationship: your own marriage creates in-laws, while your parent's remarriage creates step-relatives.
A nephew is the son of your brother or sister (or brother-in-law or sister-in-law). A niece is the daughter of your brother or sister. These are one of the few family terms in English that remain strictly gendered — there is no gender-neutral single word for a sibling's child, so learners often need to use the phrase sibling's child or the informal niblings (rarely used) if gender is unknown or irrelevant.
Sibling is the gender-neutral word for a brother or sister. Use it when you want to refer to a brother or sister without specifying gender, or when talking about more than one in a mixed-gender group: I have three siblings — two brothers and a sister. It is more common in formal or written English; in casual speech most speakers still say brothers and sisters. On forms and official documents, sibling is the standard term.
A half-brother shares one biological parent with you — either the same mother but a different father, or the same father but a different mother. A stepbrother shares no biological parent with you; he is the son of your stepparent from a previous relationship. In other words, half- indicates a shared biological parent, while step- indicates a relationship formed entirely through remarriage with no shared biological connection.
Spouse specifically refers to a husband or wife — it implies a legal marriage. Partner is broader and more informal: it can refer to a married spouse, a civil partner, or someone in a long-term relationship without legal marriage. Partner is gender-neutral and avoids specifying whether a person is married, making it useful in contexts where marital status is unknown or irrelevant. On legal and official forms, spouse is typically used for married individuals only.
The plural of mother-in-law is mothers-in-law — the noun (mother) is pluralised, not the prepositional phrase. The same rule applies to all in-law compounds: fathers-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law. A common mistake is to write mother-in-laws, which is incorrect. Think of the structure as "mothers who are in-law" — the word being counted is mother, so that is the part that takes the plural -s.
A guardian is a person who has legal responsibility for a child when the biological parents are unable or unavailable to care for them. This can be a grandparent, aunt, uncle, older sibling, or an unrelated adult. Guardianship is a legal status granted by a court. It differs from foster parent (temporary, state-arranged care) and adoptive parent (permanent legal parenthood). Understanding these distinctions is important for reading formal texts and filling in official forms in English.
Fiancé (one e) refers to a man who is engaged to be married. Fiancée (two es) refers to a woman who is engaged to be married. Both words come from French and retain the French gender marking. In spoken English both are pronounced the same way (/fiˈɒnseɪ/). In writing, the distinction matters in formal contexts, though many modern writers use fiancé for all genders. Both words describe the same relationship status: engaged to be married but not yet wed.
Divorced means the legal marriage has been formally ended through a court process — the couple are no longer legally married. Separated means a married couple are living apart and have stopped living as a couple, but the legal divorce has not yet been finalised. A separated person is still legally married; a divorced person is not. On forms that ask about marital status, these two options are kept separate precisely because they have different legal implications.
This quiz is aimed at A2 and B1 learners on the CEFR scale. At A2, learners are expected to know core immediate and extended family terms such as parent, sibling, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin. At B1, learners extend this to include in-law relationships, step-family terms, relationship-status vocabulary, and household roles. The 20 questions are graded roughly from easier (A2) at the start to more nuanced (B1) towards the end, so you will notice the questions becoming more challenging as you progress.