“What can I say? Teaching runs in the family.”

English Lesson: What can I say? Teaching runs in the family.

You're a teacher. Your father and sister are also teachers, and your grandmother used to be one too. You're talking about this to someone you just met. She's surprised to hear that.

What can I say? Teaching runs in the family.

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What can I say?

"What can I say" is something you say when you don't have any other good response to what someone says. Some situations where you can give this answer include:

  • When someone says something really good about you, and you agree but you don't want to brag.
  • When someone is really angry about something, but you aren't able to fix their problem.
  • When someone criticizes you, and you agree that it's true.

You can use it like this:

A: You're such a good singer!

B: Yeah, well, what can I say? It's a gift.

(something) runs in (someone's) family

When something "runs in" a family, it means that many people in the family share the same quality. The quality might be something physical:

Red hair runs in my family.

Or it could be a disease:

He told me that heart disease runs in his family.

Or it could be some personality trait:

Me and all my sisters have always been like this. Short tempers run in the family.