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I find that sentence in a video on youtube, and I'd like to now what is the correct, please, help me. I would be grateful for your help. I'm trying to learn English and understand special the part about grammar.

Sincerely,

Vinícius Corrêa Student from Brazil

Vinícius Corrêa
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  • Use singular agreement in this case: your family watches television. – Lawrence Apr 20 '17 at 14:01
  • I thought it was in the plural, "They" - Could you please answer me what is the correct subject pronoun in this case? HE SHE or IT? – Vinícius Corrêa Apr 20 '17 at 14:09
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    @Lawrence: In this context, "correct" is really just your opinion. Shared by the majority, admittedly, but personally I'd always use plural My family argue* a lot* since that context implies arguing among themselves** (so the fact of my family consisting of multiple individuals is central to the meaning). On the other hand, singular My family is* united in this belief* seems more natural to me because they're acting/thinking *as a group*. – FumbleFingers Apr 20 '17 at 14:16
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    Possible duplicate of My family *is* or My family *are*? – FumbleFingers Apr 20 '17 at 14:18
  • As Phl3tch's answer notes, the noun family is what the verb watches agrees with. The pronoun you'd use is they (using it would sound impolite). Collections can be a bit quirky like that. – Lawrence Apr 20 '17 at 14:19
  • @FumbleFingers I'm aware that collections sometimes have singular agreement and sometimes plural, which is why I made special reference to "in this case" in my comment above. – Lawrence Apr 20 '17 at 14:22
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    @Lawrence: Again, "correct" is really just your opinion. In the specific cited example, both versions sound perfectly natural to me. If I were the speaker, I'd be somewhat more likely to use singular if I wasn't including myself (I do my home office paperwork while my family watches television) because the implication is they're collectively doing one thing while I do something else. But plural My family always watch television when University Challenge is on because that puts me in mind of each individual family member (including me) being involved. – FumbleFingers Apr 20 '17 at 14:45
  • @FumbleFingers Just about everything that could be said about language is someone's opinion. That includes your comments and mine. And yes, I realise that's the case with this particular comment as well. In any case, your counterexample (which I don't find convincing) isn't the same as the OP's. If you object to my initial comment to this question, you'd have to prefer the sentence "My family watch television there every night". – Lawrence Apr 20 '17 at 14:56
  • @Lawrence: Your profile doesn't say whether you're BrE or Ame (or indeed, something else), but that might well make a difference here. Having said that, Mark Twain must be about as American as they come, and apparently he wrote My family don't read me at all. I assume that's in the sense of ...[they] don't read my books, rather than the more modern sense of ...can't understand how I feel about things. – FumbleFingers Apr 20 '17 at 16:59

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"Family" is a collective noun. It's singular (e.g. one family versus multiple families), but it refers to a group of persons. How you handle it depends on whose English you're trying to master, British or American.

If the latter, collective nouns are treated as singular. But there can be exceptions. It can be a bit tricky, and colloquial usage tends to be pretty irregular since most people aren't grammar nerds. I recommend you read the following: https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/09/agreement-over-collective-nouns/

Phl3tch
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