Family

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dan_089
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Family

Postby dan_089 » Sat Sep 18, 2021 3:14 pm

Hello everyone,

I have two questions:

1) Which word would you rather use for family:
It's a family which consists of a married coupled.
It's a family who consists of a married coupled.

2) Could you say: There live two children in the family. "There live" sounds weird to me.

Thank you for your help.
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Cenwalh
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Re: Family

Postby Cenwalh » Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:11 pm

dan_089 wrote:Hello everyone,

I have two questions:

1) Which word would you rather use for family:
It's a family which consists of a married coupled.
It's a family who consists of a married coupled.

2) Could you say: There live two children in the family. "There live" sounds weird to me.

Thank you for your help.


1) I would probably say it with 'which', but I would be more likely to say 'that'. 'It's a family that consists of a married couple.' or even simply 'It's a family consisting of a married couple.'

2) I don't know of a reason to say no, but it does sound a bit archaic/formal/clunky.
One of the below would sound better to me.
'Two children live in the family'
'The family has two children'
'There are two children in the family'

(all or some answers may only apply to RP)
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Iversen
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Re: Family

Postby Iversen » Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:59 pm

You can speak of a family in the sense of a clan, i.e. a network of related persons including several generations, uncles and aunts and your own and their children and spouses etc. etc. Or you can speak of a family as a couple (or a single parent) with their children, who normally would live together in one household. But just a couple ... well, it is isn't forbidden by law, but sounds a bit weird.

Anyway, the family may consist of human beings, but isn't a person in itself, and therefore I would prefer to use "which" or "that" instead of "who" in example 1 (and it should be "couple", not "coupled"): "It's a family which (or that) consists of a married couple". But I'm still uneasy about this formulation for the reason given above, whereas I wouldn't frown at "It's a family who (or that) consists of one married couple" because you here suggest that it also could have been an unmarried couple with a grandma and seven children and their dog (or in other words: a "household").

"There live two children in the family" also sounds distinctly weird to me. I guess that you can say "es lebt zwei Kinder in der Familie" in German (and as far as I know you would use the singular here), and a similar construction could also be used with for instance "kommen" ("es kam zwei Kinder vorbei")... but you can't just transfer that construction to English. "There are two children in the family" would be the most obvious solution. However if you did choose to use "to live" impersonally you would use the 3. person singular, not the plural. This construction can be found ("there lives two species of elephants in Africa"), but it is clumsy and probably only acceptable when there is some specific location mentioned.
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Le Baron
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Re: Family

Postby Le Baron » Sat Sep 18, 2021 6:04 pm

Comprehensive answer is above.

edit: Bah...Iversen beat me to it while I was typing!

However I just want to focus on the idea that a married couple is not really a 'family'. They are a married couple and that's it. In the same way that Bonnie & Clyde were a crime duo and not a gang. So to me neither:

It's a family which consists of a married coupled.
It's a family who consists of a married coupled.


...would make much sense to me either way. Of course if you plan to add children to this description - therefore indeed describing a family - there are several options, as demonstrated by Canwalh. But also:

"The family is comprised of a married couple and their two children." Even "it's a family of four" covers the necessary ground if people make the assumption of a heterosexual nuclear family!
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Re: Family

Postby leosmith » Sun Sep 19, 2021 12:30 am

dan_089 wrote:Hello everyone,

I have two questions:

1) Which word would you rather use for family:
It's a family which consists of a married coupled.
It's a family who consists of a married coupled.

2) Could you say: There live two children in the family. "There live" sounds weird to me.

Thank you for your help.

1) It's a family that consists of a married coupled.
2) Imo, no. s/b There are two children in the family.
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