My Home: Rooms and Furniture in English

Learn to describe your home in simple English. This free A1 lesson for adult beginners introduces types of homes, room names, furniture, and everyday household items. Its 12 interactive slides include vocabulary pictures and audio, a video quiz, a word unscrambling activity, and a guided writing task.

What you will learn

• Name different types of homes.
• Identify rooms, furniture, and household items.
• Answer simple questions about where you live.
• Use there is and there are to describe items in a room.
• Write a short description of your home.

Types of homes in English

The picture and audio cards introduce house, apartment building, mobile home, and townhouse. A house is a building where people live. An apartment building contains several apartments. A mobile home is a home designed to be moved. A townhouse is a house that usually shares a wall with another house.

The video also introduces apartment and flat as two words for the same type of home. Practice saying I live in a house. or I live in an apartment. Listen for other features, such as a garage or a balcony.

Rooms in a home

Learn these five room names. Look at each picture, listen to its audio, and repeat the word aloud.

• Bedroom: a room for sleeping.
• Bathroom: a room for washing and using the toilet.
• Kitchen: a room for cooking and preparing food.
• Living room: a room for relaxing and spending time with family.
• Dining room: a room for eating meals.

Practice the question How many rooms do you have? Use a number in your answer: I have five rooms. Then name some of them: I have a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room.

Furniture and household vocabulary

The furniture cards and video help you connect common items with the rooms where you can find them.

• Bedroom: bed, bedside table, and lamp.
• Bathroom: bathtub, shower, sink, and toilet.
• Kitchen: fridge, microwave, oven, and sink.
• Living room: sofa, coffee table, carpet, TV, and TV unit.
• Dining room: table and chairs.

The video uses sofa and couch for the same item and TV and television for the same device. Other words in the video and spelling activity include rug, curtains, cushion, plant, and fireplace.

Describing a room with there is and there are

Use there is for one item and there are for several items. Add the room name to explain where the items are.

Compare a chair with four chairs. Add -s to form the plural of these words: chair, table, lamp, and cushion.

Speaking practice: talking about your home

Partner: Do you live in a house or in an apartment?
You: I live in an apartment.
Partner: How many rooms do you have?
You: I have five rooms. There is a sofa in the living room. There are four chairs in the dining room.

Take turns asking and answering. Change the home type, number of rooms, and furniture to describe your own home.

Writing practice: a glimpse into my home

Use the final writing guide to build a short description: I live in a ..., I have ... rooms., There is a ... in the ..., and There are ... in the .... Here is a model you can adapt:

I live in an apartment. I have five rooms. There is a bed in the bedroom. There are four chairs in the dining room. There is a sofa in the living room.

Read your description aloud. Check your room names and furniture words, then check whether you need there is or there are in each sentence.

Practice with the interactive lesson

1. Review family vocabulary in the opening quiz.
2. Answer the two questions about your home.
3. Watch the rooms and furniture video.
4. Listen to and repeat the vocabulary cards.
5. Watch the video again and answer its quiz questions.
6. Unscramble household words to practice spelling.
7. Write about your home and share what you learned.

Teachers can use the room pictures to model a description before learners speak or write. For self-study, pause the audio, repeat each word, and use it in a sentence about a room.

Review family vocabulary in Lesson 4, or browse more free A1 English teaching materials.