Virtuous English AcademyRelationships & People — A2 English Vocabulary
This A2 vocabulary list gathers 30 elementary English words about relationships & people — family, friends and the people around you. Every word comes with a simple definition, its British-English pronunciation and a natural example sentence, so you learn each one in real context. When you are ready, open the flashcards to practise and remember them for good.
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Using relationships & people words in English
Two things make this list worth studying rather than just reading. The first is a productive suffix pattern: friendship, relationship, childhood and neighbourhood show how English turns concrete nouns into abstract ones with -ship and -hood, and once you see it you will recognise it everywhere. The second is stranger, which looks like the word for a foreign person in a great many languages and does not mean that in English.
What to watch out for
A stranger is not a foreigner
A stranger is somebody you do not know, whatever their nationality — your own neighbour is a stranger until you meet. A foreigner is somebody from another country. Calling a visitor a stranger sounds unfriendly, and the word carries a faint warning: Do not talk to strangers. This is one of the most reliable false friends in English for speakers of Romance and Slavic languages.
-ship and -hood make abstract nouns
Friend gives friendship, relation gives relationship, partner gives partnership. Child gives childhood, neighbour gives neighbourhood, adult gives adulthood. The -ship words name a connection between people; the -hood words name a period of life or a community. Note the British spelling neighbourhood with the u.
Married to, and couple takes a plural verb
It is married to somebody, never married with — married with two children is correct but means something entirely different. Couple behaves as a group in British English: The couple are moving to Spain. And relative is the everyday word for a family member; relation can mean the same but more often means the connection itself, as in relations between the two countries.
Words learners mix up
Three tables: the words modern British English uses for the person you are with, the corner of the family tree where English is vaguer than most languages, and the four verbs that describe what actually holds people together.
The person you are with
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| partner | The standard word for the person you live with or are serious about, married or not, of any gender. | She came with her partner. |
| boyfriend | A man or boy you are romantically involved with. One word, and it implies something less settled than partner. | Her boyfriend works in Manchester. |
| girlfriend | The same for a woman — though among women it can also simply mean a close female friend, particularly in American English. | He is bringing his girlfriend. |
| engaged | Having agreed to marry. An adjective with be or get: they got engaged in June. | They have been engaged for a year. |
Partner has become the neutral British default because it says nothing about marriage or gender, which is exactly why forms and workplaces use it. Note that it also means a business partner, so context matters. The person you are engaged to is your fiancé if he is a man and fiancée if she is a woman — both keep the French accent and sound identical.
Where English is vague about family
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| cousin | One word for every cousin: male or female, on either side of the family, and any age. | I have eleven cousins. |
| nephew | Your brother’s or sister’s son. British speakers say NEF-yoo; some say NEV-yoo. | My nephew starts school this year. |
| niece | Your brother’s or sister’s daughter. Said neess, and spelled with ie, not ei. | I am taking my niece to the zoo. |
| twin | One of two children born together. Used as a noun and as an adjective: twin brothers. | They are twins, but they look nothing alike. |
English is unusually poor here compared with most languages: cousin covers what Turkish, Arabic and Chinese all divide into several separate words, and there is no everyday English way to say whether a relative is on your mother’s or your father’s side without spelling it out — my cousin on my mother’s side. Twins are either identical or non-identical, and British English does not say false twins.
What holds people together
| Word | What it actually means | In a sentence |
|---|---|---|
| trust | Verb and noun. The verb takes a person directly: I trust her, never trust to her. | It takes years to build trust. |
| respect | Verb and noun again, and the noun takes for: respect for her parents. | They respect each other completely. |
| support | To help somebody through something, financially or emotionally. Also what you do for a football team. | Her family supported her all the way. |
| quarrel | An angry disagreement, and the verb for having one. Slightly old-fashioned in British speech. | They had a quarrel about money. |
Quarrel is the one to be careful with, because it now sounds like a novel: in modern British speech people say have a row — rhyming with cow — or have an argument. And support is worth noticing for its double life: who do you support? is a question about football, while my family supported me is about help. Both are entirely ordinary.
Collocations that sound natural
Talking about people means putting the right verb in front of the right noun, and these six frames carry most of what you will need to describe your own life.
relationship
a close relationshipa good relationship witha long-distance relationshipthe relationship ended
The preposition is with for the person and between for the two of them together. In British English a relationship without further explanation usually means a romantic one.
divorce
get a divorceask for a divorceafter the divorcethe divorce rate
The verb takes the person directly: she divorced him. As a noun the phrase is get a divorce, and the state afterwards is divorced.
trust
trust someonebuild trustlose someone’s trustI trust you
Trust is uncountable in this sense, so no a trust and no plural. The adjective trustworthy describes the person who deserves it.
introduce
introduce yourselfintroduce me to your sisterLet me introduce…introduce someone to something
The pattern is always introduce somebody to somebody, with to. The verb also works for a first experience: my father introduced me to jazz.
visit
go and visitpay someone a visita short visitvisit relatives
As a verb it takes the person or place directly — visit my grandmother, never visit to — although the noun does take one: a visit to the dentist.
together
live togetherget togetherstay togetherall together
Get together means meet socially, and the noun a get-together is an informal gathering. Do not confuse the two words all together, meaning as a group, with the single word altogether, meaning completely.
Where each word belongs
Five words about people, sorted by where you can safely use them — two belong to writing, one is as informal as British English gets, and one is the polite way of saying something that can easily sound rude.
- mateBritish · very informalA friend: he is an old mate of mine. It also works as a way of addressing a man you do not know — thanks, mate — which is friendly between strangers and would be odd in an office. It never appears in writing.
- elderlyPolite · about ageThe considerate word for old people, used both as an adjective and, with the, for the group: services for the elderly. Calling an individual old to their face is blunt in English, and older is the gentlest option of all.
- grandparentWritten · covers bothA useful umbrella word for forms and writing, but almost nobody says it out loud. In speech British families use grandma, granny, grandad or grandpa, and the choice is a family habit rather than a rule.
- adultTwo pronunciationsBritish English usually stresses the first syllable — ADD-ult — while American English often stresses the second. Note the second meaning in adult films and adult content, which is why forms prefer over 18.
- teenagerExactly 13 to 19The word comes from the numbers that end in -teen, so it starts at thirteen and stops at nineteen. The adjective is teenage without the r: a teenage daughter. In official writing the term is young people.
Sentences to try
Four frames covering the family words. Adapt each one to somebody you actually know.
- My cousin is getting married to a teacher.
- All my relatives live in the same neighbourhood.
- They have been friends since childhood.
- A stranger stopped me in the street to ask for directions.
Questions about relationships & people vocabulary
Does "stranger" mean foreigner in English?
No, and this is one of the most common false friends there is. A stranger is simply a person you do not know — nationality has nothing to do with it, so the man at the next table in your own home town is a stranger. Somebody from another country is a foreigner, and if they are visiting, visitor or tourist is friendlier. Note also the adjective strange, which means odd or unusual rather than unknown, and does not describe people politely.
Is it "married to" or "married with"?
Married to. The person you married takes to: She is married to a doctor. Married with is grammatical English but means something else — it introduces what the couple has, usually children: He is married with three children. So married with a doctor would suggest the doctor is one of your possessions. The verb marry used directly needs no preposition at all: They married in 2019.
What is the difference between a relative and a relation?
Both can mean a member of your family, and relative is the word people actually use in speech: We have relatives in Canada. Relation is possible in that sense but sounds slightly old-fashioned, and its main modern meaning is the connection between things or groups: the relation between diet and health, relations between the two governments. If you mean a person, choose relative; if you mean a link, choose relation or relationship.