The House and Rooms
Learn 20 easy A1 English words for the house and its rooms - kitchen, bedroom, stairs, garden and more - with examples, a story and a quiz.
Where do you live? It is one of the first questions people ask you in English, and you need words to answer it. In this lesson you will learn 20 words for a home: the building, the rooms inside it, and the parts you use every day. Learn them first, then follow Omar as he looks at a house for the first time.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/haʊs/
A building where a family lives. It usually has more than one floor.
They live in a small house near the sea.
/flæt/
A home inside a bigger building, all on one floor. Americans say apartment.
My flat is on the third floor.
/ruːm/
One space inside a house, with walls and a door.
Our house has five rooms.
/ˈkɪtʃɪn/
The room where you cook food.
My mother is in the kitchen.
/ˈbedruːm/
The room where you sleep.
I share a bedroom with my brother.
/ˈbɑːθruːm/
The room with the bath, the shower and the toilet.
The bathroom is at the end of the corridor.
/ˈlɪvɪŋ ruːm/
The room where the family sits together, watches TV and talks.
We watch films in the living room.
/ˈɡɑːdn/
The green space outside a house, with grass, flowers or trees.
My father grows tomatoes in the garden.
/dɔː(r)/
You open it to go into a room or a building.
Please close the door.
/ˈwɪndəʊ/
The glass in the wall. Light comes in through it.
Open the window – it is hot in here.
/wɔːl/
The flat side of a room, from the floor to the ceiling.
There is a big photo on the wall.
/flɔː(r)/
The part you walk on. It also means one level of a building.
The cat is sleeping on the floor.
/ruːf/
The top of a house, outside. It stops the rain.
The roof is red.
/steəz/
You use them to go up or down inside a house. Always plural.
Be careful on the stairs.
/ˈɡærɑːʒ/
The room or building where you keep the car.
The car is in the garage.
/kiː/
The small metal thing that opens a door.
I lost my house key again.
/ˌʌpˈsteəz/
On or to a higher floor of the house.
My room is upstairs.
/ˌdaʊnˈsteəz/
On or to a lower floor of the house.
Come downstairs – dinner is ready!
/lɪv/
To have your home in a place.
I live in Amman with my family.
/əˈdres/
The name of the street and the number of the house.
What is your address?
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Fourteen Green Street
Omar has a new job in a small town. This morning he wrote an address on his hand and took the bus: fourteen Green Street. He wants to live in a house this year, not in a flat, because after six years on the fourth floor he wants a garden.
The owner is waiting at the door with a big metal key in her hand. The first room is the living room. It is not large, but there is a wide window and the sun comes in all afternoon. One wall is yellow and the other three are white. The floor is old brown wood, and it makes a small noise when you walk on it.
The kitchen is behind the living room. It is small and very clean, and Omar can already see himself standing there at seven in the morning with a coffee. Next to the kitchen there is a second door, and behind that door there is a garage full of somebody else’s boxes.
“Now come upstairs,” the owner says. The stairs make a noise at every step. At the top there are two rooms: a big bedroom with a window over the garden, and a small bathroom with a blue door. “And the roof is new,” the owner says. She says it twice.
They go downstairs again and stand outside. The garden is not beautiful yet. The grass is long and there is a broken chair under the tree. But Omar is already thinking about a small table, two chairs and a quiet coffee on Friday morning. “I will take it,” he says, and the owner puts the key in his hand.
Good news first: bathroom is one of the easier words here, because that th sound exists in plenty of other languages too. Now three things to be careful with:
- live /lɪv/ has a short i. Do not say it like leave /liːv/. I live in Amman means Amman is my home; I leave Amman means I am going away!
- stairs is always plural. Never say a stair.
- Never use to before upstairs and downstairs. Say I went upstairs, not I went to upstairs.
British English says flat, American English says apartment. Both are correct – choose one and stay with it.
Think about a home in three groups:
The building: house, flat, roof, garage, garden, address.
The rooms: room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living room.
The parts you use: door, window, wall, floor, stairs, key, upstairs, downstairs.
Now say one true sentence about yourself: I live in a flat with two bedrooms and a very small kitchen.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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