2 questions needing answers

[stel1]

Hello, everyone
I'd like to know whether you can say: There are four members in my family.
I stumbled upon it in my coursebook and it made me feel awkward as I've been guiding my students towards avoiding saying that. Instead I told them to say :There are four people in my family.
Could both of them be correct?
One more question is whether we can say: I was smoking when I was a teenager as an equivalent to : I used to smoke/ I smoked
Thanks for the hospitality
stel1

[J&K Tutoring]

I'd like to know whether you can say: There are four members in my family.
There are four people in my family.
Could both of them be correct?
I agree with you. Your solution is much more common in NA English, though both are correct. We would most often refer to 'members of my family, though we would not say "There are four members of my family."

One more question is whether we can say: I was smoking when I was a teenager as an equivalent to : I used to smoke/ I smoked
I think not. We would not say "I was smoking when I was a teenager" We would say instead, 'I smoked when I was a teenager' or 'I smoked as a teenager' or simply, 'I used to smoke'.

[Barb_D]

stel, welcome to Using English.


In the future, it would be better to break your questions into separate threads and give each thread a title that tells us what you're asking about.

For example:
Members or people in my family?
and
I was smoking/I smoked

The reason we ask you to keep the quesions separate is that if people want to discuss one in more depth, you might have three replies on that topic, and then someone else has a comment on the other question, and the thread becomes a mess.

I hope that won't be the case here, since you got two good answers to your questions right away.