How to Introduce Yourself in English | Self Introductions

Have you ever met someone and wanted to introduce yourself, but you weren’t quite sure what to say or how to keep the conversation going?

Today’s topic may seem a bit beginner, but self introductions are an essential skill that you need to know in any situation. Whether you’re meeting a person for the first time, or given an assignment and need to speak to a larger group of people, this post will help you learn the best ways to introduce yourself.

Let’s talk about the key elements of a self-introduction. Let’s start off with a greeting, something like, “It’s so nice to meet you” or “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” The difference between these two examples is that one is slightly more formal than the other. The first example, “It’s so nice to meet you,” is the more informal of the two and is what you’re going to hear and probably say the most often. “It’s so nice to meet you.” The second example is the more formal greeting, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” In this instance you would say this if you’re meeting someone in a business setting or for the first time. This is especially true if it’s someone you’ve been wanting to meet for a long time. If the other person is the first person to say “It’s so nice to meet you,” you can reply with “It’s nice to meet you too.”

Next you will want to say your name to let them know who you are. You can say this in one of two ways. The first way is “My name is _____.” and the second is “I am _____.” So for myself, I would say, “My name is Aleja.” or I could say, “I am Aleja.” Either one of those will work in any scenario to introduce yourself.

Now is the fun part where you get into the details about yourself. You can share things like where you’re from, what you do for a living, what brings you to the area that you’re in etc. For example, to tell someone where you are from you can say, “I’m from ____, it’s a city in ____.” Using myself as an example, I would say, “I’m from Salt Lake City, it’s a city in Utah.”

The next thing you could say is, “I’m currently living in _____.” This is if you’re from a specific city but you’re not currently living there. For example “I’m from New York, but I’m currently living in Dallas.”

To keep the conversation going, you can continue to ask more questions. To learn about their occupation or job you can ask “what do you do for work?” Let’s pretend they work in engineering. The ‘ing’ makes it an action so they might say, “I work in engineering” but they could also say “I work as an engineer.” Those are two ways to say the same thing. Another example is “I work in education.” Or I could say “I work as a teacher or educator.”

“What brings you to the area?” This is a great question to ask someone, especially if you‘re meeting them at a place where people typically vacation or travel to frequently. “What brings you to the area?” you could then respond with something like “I‘m here on vacation” or “I‘m just visiting.” That‘s a very simple answer that could include a vacation, work, visiting family etc. If you‘re in a one-on-one situation it‘s also vital that you ask the other person about themselves as well, that way it‘s a two-way conversation. If you‘re only talking about yourself it can be perceived as rude or uninterested.

Here are some basic questions that you can ask another person about themselves:

• Where are you from?
• Are you from around here?
• How long have you lived here?
• Could you remind me of your name?
• Where do you work?
• Do you like your job?
• Do you like this area?
• What brings you to the area?
• What do you like to do for fun?

Now we‘re going to learn how to exit from the conversation. You can say things like “It was so nice to meet you, I hope to see you again soon” or “It was so nice getting to know you, take care!” You want to reinforce that it was nice meeting the person, and that you hope to have interactions with them in the future.

Let‘s do a quick review. Your introduction or first time conversation should be somewhat short, but should open up the potential to have a longer conversation. My introduction would sound something like:

“Hi, my name is Aleja. It‘s so nice to meet you. I‘m here in Salt Lake City visiting some friends for fun. What brings you here? I live in Dallas, but I’m from New York. I‘ve lived there for about a year. Where are you from? It was so nice getting to know you, take care!”

I hope that you feel confident now in understanding the basics of a self-introduction. All of the skills we learned today can be used in multiple scenarios whether you‘re meeting someone one-on-one or giving a broader explanation about yourself. If you have any additional questions or want to hear me talk more about introductions, head on over to our youtube channel and watch our video all about how to introduce yourself!https://youtu.be/Y8rfZjWlKbY