A visitor to this website recently asked for the sort of phrases he might use when introducing himself to people, for example in an English class. We thought we would write a blog post on the subject.
Starting with the most important piece of information, we could say ‘I’m Maria Gonzalez.’ or ‘My name is Maria Gonzalez.’ If we want to say how old we are, we simply say ‘I’m twenty-three.’ or ‘I’m twenty-three years old.’ Then we might say, for example, ‘I’m Spanish.’ or ‘I’m from Spain.’ To give more detail about where we live, we could say ‘I’m from Valencia in Spain.’ or even ‘I’m from Valencia, on the east coast of Spain.’
If we live somewhere different now, we might like to add this information by saying, for example ‘I was born in Valencia, but I live in Madrid now.’ (Notice the tense here ‘I was born.’) If the place we are living in now is only temporary (=for a short time) we express this by saying, for example, ‘I’m studying in Madrid for six months.’ (Notice that present continuous tense ‘am studying’ for an activity that the speaker is doing at the moment.)
We might like to talk about our family, in which case we might say, ‘I live with my parents and my younger brother.’ We could add, ‘I also have an older sister who lives in France.’
If we work, we might talk briefly about this, saying, for example, ‘I’m a teacher.’ or ‘I work as a teacher.’
When we meet other people for the first time, it is sometimes nice to tell them a little about ourselves – our interests and what we like to do in our spare time. There are various ways to do this:
I like playing tennis in my spare time. / I play a lot of tennis.
I like reading. / I’m a keen reader.
I’m a big fan of Real Madrid.
If we are in an English class, we might explain why we are learning English. We might say, for example, ‘I’m learning English because I need it for my job/my studies.’ or we might say ‘I’m learning English because it’s useful for travelling.’ It’s possible that we simply want to say ‘I’m learning English because I enjoy learning languages.’
We hope this has given you a few phrases to use when you are meeting new people.