How to introduce yourself & other people

Are you stuck when you have to introduce yourself? Do you avoid introducing people because you don't know how? Don't be afraid anymore! Watch this lesson and learn what to say and do! Develop your confidence to be more successful in personal and professional life. Take the quiz on this lesson here: engvid.com/how-to-introduce-yourself-other-peop…

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. I'm Rebecca from www.engvid.com. In this lesson, you'll learn how to introduce yourself and also how to introduce people who don't know each other. Now, sometimes, you learn a lot of English and you don't... You still feel nervous, you don't feel confident doing simple things. So, this is one of those simple, but important things, but you need to be able to do. To be able to walk up to someone, to introduce yourself, and also to know how to respond when someone does that. And that may be true, whether you're at a business conference or at a party. Okay? So, let's get started.

So, here, first we'll talk about the formal situation. So, let's say we'll start over here. "Hello. I'm Bill White." Their response is: "Hi. I'm Susan Jones." So, he says, then: "It's a pleasure to meet you." And she says: "It's a pleasure to meet you, too." Okay? Pretty straightforward, pretty simple. Why? Because, especially at this part, you're just repeating what the other person says, except that you're adding the word: "too". Okay?

Let's try it again. "Hello. I'm Bill White." Now, at that point, you probably want to also shake hands. So, let me mention that. So, the things that you should do in addition to what you say are these things: you should try to maintain a straight posture because you look more professional that way, especially in a business situation. In a North American context, also, we establish eye contact. All right? That shows that we're not afraid, that shows we're not hiding anything. All right? Shows confidence. And, you want to give a firm handshake. Okay? Don't keep your hand really weak. Keep it firm. Not hard. Don't squeeze the other person's hand, but make a firm handshake. And this is true whether you're a man or a woman. And usually, we smile because it's a little bit... It shows that you're a friendly person and you're happy to meet the other person, even in a business situation.

So let's get started. And what I was saying is about the handshake, you could shake hands right here. So, you could say: "Hello. I'm Bill White." Or, you could say it at this point when you say: "It's a pleasure to meet you." Okay?

-"Hello. I'm Bill White." -"Hi. I'm Susan Jones." -"It's a pleasure to meet you." -"It's a pleasure to meet you, too." And if you want, one thing you can do is to mention the person's name when you're saying: "It's a pleasure to meet you." Okay? But sometimes in a business context, you're not yet sure whether to say: "Ms. Jones", or: "Susan", so you could try it, and you could say: "It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Jones." And she might say: "Oh, you can call me Susan. It's a pleasure to meet you, too." And so on. Okay? But main thing is this part is just repeated.

Next, in an informal situation. So, here, instead of saying: "Hello", we're just going to say: -"Hi! Hi! I'm George." -"Hi! I'm Maria." -"Nice to meet you." -"Nice to meet you, too." Again, we're just repeating. So, what happened? Here, it's a little more formal, so we said: "It's a pleasure to meet you." And here, because it's informal, we just said: -"Nice to meet you." -"Nice to meet you, too." Okay? So, just repeat that. And also, instead of: "Hello", we're just saying: "Hi!" All right? -"Hi! I'm George." -"Hi! I'm Maria." -"Nice to meet you." -"Nice to meet you, too." Okay? So, try that. Next I'll show you how to introduce people who don't know each other.

So, let's see how to introduce people to each other. First, we'll do this in a formal situation. Okay? So let's pretend in this scenario that there are three people. You are Carol Smith, and you know Scott Topper, and you know Steven Shaw, but they don't know each other. But you don't know that, so you have to find out first, because sometimes people do know each other.

So, Carol is going to speak first. So, Carol knows both of them. All right? So she says... Carol Smith says: "Have you met each other?" So, let's say she turns to one of them or to either of them, and she says... So, Scott answers and he says: "No, we haven't." Sometimes this person will answer, sometimes both of those people will answer kind of at the same time, say: "No, we haven't." Doesn't matter. And then, Carol says, if it's a formal situation: "Mr. Topper, this is Mr. Shaw. Mr. Shaw, this is Mr. Topper." Now, sometimes this part is not necessary, because it's kind of obvious. So, usually... Usually, if you just say the first part, people will start introducing themselves then to each other or continue with the: "Pleasure to meet you." But if you want to know the traditional way in which it's done, it's done like that. Okay?