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How to Introduce Yourself

In this American English pronunciation video, you’re going to come with me to the YouTube space in LA where I don’t know anyone. And we’re going to go over introducing yourself.

Introducing yourself to a crowd of people, or even just one person, can make anyone nervous.

Doing it in a foreign language, even more so. So today we’re going to go over a few phrases that you might say when introducing yourself.

The first thing, of course, is saying your name. Usually you’ll hear people say “I’m”, or “My name is”, or “My name’s”, contracting “name” and “is”. Some non-native speakers don’t want to use contractions because they don’t think it’s clear enough, but we really do want to use the contraction “I’m”, and not “I am” because it can be much quicker, I’m, I’m, I’m, which puts the emphasis on the name, the most important part. This will also help smooth out your speech. I’m Rachel, uhhh. All connected. Here are some people introducing themselves using “I’m”.

Hi. I’m Beth Aweau.

Hey guys. I’m Olga Kay.

I’m Staci Perry.

Um, hey guys. I’m Todd Bieber.

Hi everyone. I’m Veronica Hill.

Hey, I’m Rachel.

Hi, I’m Hilah.

Hi, I’m Rachel.

Hi, I’m Christopher.

I’m Bryan.

Here’s an example of someone saying “my name is,” without contracting “name” and “is”.

Hi everyone. My name is Hetal Jannu.

Notice that the stress of the sentence is still making her name the most important part.

My name is Hetal. My name is Rachel. da-Da-da-DA-da. It’s longer, louder, and higher in pitch than the unstressed syllables. My name is Rachel, Ra-, My name is Rachel. That’s how we know it’s the most important part. So in the phrase “my name is”, “my” and “is” are both unstressed, and so they need to be really unimportant, really quick, my [3x], is [3x].

My name is, my name is. If every syllable is the same length, the same volume, the same pitch, then we loose the character of American English, which is based on stressed vs. unstressed syllables.

We can also say “My name’s Rachel”, with the contraction. The rhythm there is da-DA-DA-da.

“Name” is stressed because it’s a noun. But my actual name, Rachel, will be more stressed.

And I should say, it’s only the stressed syllable, Ra-, of my name that’s going to be longer and higher in pitch. The unstressed syllable, -chel, is just like any other unstressed syllable, even though it’s in a stressed word.

My name’s Aaron.

Uh, what’s up guys. My name’s Todd.

Hi, my name’s Sara.

Often what comes next in an introduction is saying where you’re from. This can either be a job, if you’re in a work context, or a place, your hometown or where you’re currently living. “From”. That’s never going to be as important as the name of the place you’re from. It’s a function word, so we want it to be unstressed, shorter than the stressed syllables in the sentence, from, from. Listen to these people introducing the places they’re from. They’re using the contraction “I’m”

and “from” and then the name. These two words are quicker and less important: I’m from [3x]. I’m from Florida. I’m from New York.

I’m from Kapolei, Hawaii.

…from Seattle originally.

I’m from New York. You’re from Texas?

You’re from, where, again?

I’m from Delaware.

Here’s one last example of someone saying “I’m from”, but he’s giving his business, the company he works for, not a city.

I’m from Upright Citizens’ Brigade, uh, channel: UCBcomedy.

One fun moment I noticed is when Todd introduced himself and Bryan said “Ts’up Todd?” Tsup, tsup.

Nice to meet you.

Tsup, Todd? [4x]

Tsup. What is that word? That’s actually “what’s up?” I made a video a while ago on “tsup”: how we’ll sometimes reduce “what’s”, “it’s”, “that’s”, or “let’s” to simply “ts”.

Tsup? Now I know you’re probably not hearing the P, but maybe you do notice my lips are going into the position for it. Tsup. P is a stop consonant. That means it’s made up of two parts. The stop, where the lips come together, tsup, and the release, where the lips part. tsup. Sometimes native speakers leave out the release: tsup?

Stop. Nope. You can too, just make sure you don’t leave out the stop part of the consonant, where the lips come together and the air is stopped. Tsup?

And finally, a phrase we often exchange when making an introduction is “nice to meet you”.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too.

Well, it was good to meet you, Hilah.

Nice to meet you, too.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Most people say ‘nice to meet you’, and probably you noticed that once I said “it’s good to meet you”. “Nice”, or “good”, or whatever adjective you’re using, and “meet” should be the two stressed syllables of that sentence. That will contrast nicely with “to”, which will have a schwa instead of the OO as in BOO vowel, to, to, to. “You”, since it’s at the end of a sentence, will probably sound something like: you, you, you. Low in pitch, quick, flat, and with a lot of the energy of the voice taken out. You, you, nice to meet you.

We heard two different ways of pronouncing the T in “meet”. One is a stop T, because the next word begins with a consonant sound. Meet you, meet you. I cut off the airflow in my throat to stop the sound, to signify the T. I don’t actually bring my tongue into position for the T, I just stop the air here. Meet you. The other way of making the T is to make it a CH sound. This can happen to an ending T if the next word is “you”, meet you, meet you. So first, let’s hear it again with the stop.

Nice to meet you. [4x]

And now with the CH sound.

Nice to meet you. [4x]

Meet you, meet you. Both are ok.

In closing, here is one more introduction conversation I had with a great guy I met in LA named Zachary.

Hi.

Oh, hey.

I’m Rachel.

I’m Zach.

Hi Zach, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

So, we’re here at the YouTube Space. So you must be a YouTuber.

Yep. Make videos for kids.

Yeah? What’s your channel?

Pancake Manor.

Oh wow.

What’s yours?

Mine’s Rachel’s English.

Oo.

So I teach English on my channel.

Wow. You must have a lot of subscribers.

I do, I do. But actually, let’s talk about that word. It’s subscribers, with an R.

Oh. Subscribers.

Subscrrrr-, hold out the R.

Subscrr, rr, -scribers.

Yeah, that’s it!

Subscribers.

Perfect.

Yeah.

I’m going to tell my users about your channel, so they can go see you.

Cool, thank you.

Yeah. It was great to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Ok, have a great day.

You too.

Alright, take care!

Bye! Subscribers. Yeah.

Thanks so much to all the wonderful people who were in this video.