- Hello, everyone, and welcome back to English with Lucy.

Today, we are going to talk about self introduction,

the answer to that dreaded question,

"Tell me about yourself."

Now, to some of you this topic may seem very basic,

but learning to introduce yourself properly

is incredibly important.

You might need to introduce yourself

without any forewarning, so you need to be prepared.

You may need to introduce yourself in your English class

or in a job interview.

You might need to introduce yourself at a new job

or at a new hobby or leisure activity.

You may even need to introduce yourself at a big event

or convention in front of thousands of people.

I feel very nervous and anxious

when I have to introduce myself to large groups of people,

and English is my first language.

For learners of English, for my students,

this is incredibly intimidating.

In order to successfully introduced yourself,

you must have your self introduction pre-written and learnt.

You have to be prepared.

In this video, I am going to guide you through this process.

At the end of this lesson, you will have

a complete self introduction that is ready to use

and ready for you to learn off by heart.

I encourage you to share your introductions

in the comment section down below,

so that the community and I may assist you and correct you.

Before we get started, I'd just like to thank

the sponsor of today's video. It is Italki.

If you haven't heard of Italki before,

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So many students message me and ask me

how they can meet and talk to native speakers.

Italki is a really great option,

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They've given me an offer to pass on to you.

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That could be a free lesson.

Just click on the link in the description box to sign up.

Right, let's get on with the lesson.

So, let's start with the basics of a self introduction.

The very first thing that you'll need to say

when introducing yourself is a greeting.

Now, you can have formal greetings

or you can have informal greetings.

It depends where you are, the situation you are in.

Let's start with formal greetings.

Obviously, hello.

Hello can be both formal and informal,

but it's fine to use it in a formal situation.

You also have good morning, good afternoon and good evening.

Make sure you pay particular attention

to what time of day it is.

I have said good morning in the evening

and good evening in the morning before.

One thing to note is the use of good day.

In British English, good day is considered

very old-fashioned, very very, very formal.

It's not commonly used.

However, it is very common in Australian English.

They kind of shorten it down to g'day.

G'day. (chuckling)

And I would say that, g'day.

I wonder what Emma from mmmEnglish will think

(chuckling) of me saying g'day.

Will she approve? I'll ask her.

But, g'day is more informal.

But this again is if you're in Australia.

It's just something I've noticed

people using in my comments section, "Good day."

I can see why you would use it.

It appears to be a greeting

that is suitable for all hours of the day,

when in reality, in British English,

it's just a very, very old-fashioned saying.

Also note that goodnight is normally a send off,

an equivalent for goodbye.

You say it when you are leaving

instead of when you are greeting someone.

If you're introducing yourself in the night time,

you would say good evening.

Now let's talk about informal greetings.

It's really important for you to find one

that you feel comfortable with.

There are lots of informal greetings,

like hey, what's up, hi, hiya,

yo. (laughing)

There's even, what's good?

Which is quite an American one.

Honestly, if I said yo when I was introducing myself

in an English class or in a less formal situation,

I would feel really stupid, because it doesn't suit me.

My particular region doesn't use yo,

so it feels a bit forced.

I really admire people who can just stand up and say,

"Yo, what's good?"

But it's not gonna happen for me.

So make sure you pick one

that you feel really comfortable saying.

Next of course we have your name.

Now, there are many ways of introducing your name.

The very basic ones like I'm or I am.

I'm Lucy. I am Lucy.

Or, if you're introducing yourself in a situation

where the majority of the audience cannot see you,

for example on the telephone.

No one can really see you

when you're speaking on the telephone.

You can say, my name is or my name's,

with the apostrophe-s, the contracted form.

Or, if you're in a very large

auditorium or convention centre,

then you might want to use this is, "This is Lucy."

On the telephone I would normally say,

hi, this is Lucy speaking, or this is Lucy.

Next let's talk about location,

where you're from and where you're living.

There are many variations of this.

I'm going to start with the most basic

and move on to slightly more complicated ways

of describing your geographical location.

Firstly we have I'm from, and then the place name.

I'm from Bedfordshire.

We also have I'm and then the nationality adjective.

"I'm British, I'm English."

If you are from somewhere that is quite far

from the place where you're introducing yourself,

you can say I come from, and then you can name that place.

Come from implies a little bit more of a journey.

If you want to say where you grew up, you can say,

I was born and raised in place name.

I was born and raised in England.

If you were born in one place

but grew up in a different place, you can say,

I was born in France but raised in Sweden.

If you want to say that you are from one place,

but are now living in another place,

there are various options.

You can say, I grew up in...

"I grew up in LA but now live in New York."

"I'm originally from Edinburgh but I'm now based in London."

If you want to say how long you have lived

in a certain place, you can say,

"I've been living in London for three years."

Or, "I've spent the past few years in Paris."

Now, those are the basics.

Let's talk about some other options

that you can add on to your self introduction.

A very important option is your position and your company.

For example, "I work at Google in the marketing department."

You can say, I work at or I work for.

You would not say I work in, and then a company name.

It's at or for a company name.

You can also say, "I'm a manager at Starbucks."

I'm a position at company.