How to introduce yourself naturally, with confidence in English

- Hi there, and welcome back

to Speak English with Christina,

where you'll learn American culture and business know-how,

to become more confident in English.

And today we have our second special lesson,

How to Introduce Yourself Naturally, and with Confidence.

And before we start, go ahead

and activate the subtitles for this video

if you want the subtitles.

And this episode is part of the free, mini-course,

Confident Conversation Skills:

Small talk strategies for big success.

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all of the lessons in this series, go ahead

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students who are learning with me.

So today we're gonna dive right in to part two

which is all about natural, confident introductions

for great first impressions,

when you're making conversation,

when you're making small talk,

and it could be in both professional

and personal situations.

Now, the first thing is, I wanna share with you,

a typical introduction that I hear from students.

Now this is not to make fun of students,

but just to show you what I typically hear

and what is wrong with this.

So I might ask a student,

say like, "Oh, tell be about yourself,"

or, "I don't know if we've met yet,"

and the student will start

this presentation of themselves.

And it's often like,

"Hi, I'm Jose, I'm 44 years old.

"I'm a computer engineer.

"Um, I have a son.

"He's 13 years old.

"Um, I'm married.

"I'm from Madrid.

"I work in my company for nine years.

"Um, that's all."

And then I hear this and I'm like,

"Ah, I know you can do better than this."

But like I said, it's not to make fun of the students,

but it's just to show this is what typically happens.

And it's not exactly

what is expected in a conversation

when you're introducing yourself.

So in this lesson, we are going to fix;

we're gonna transform the way that you introduce yourself.

We're gonna look at key vocabulary

on how to naturally talk about your job.

We're gonna look at a conversation strategy

which I call ping-pong conversations,

and you'll see why,

when we get to that part.

We do a little zoom on a specific aspect of spoken English

which is the word, "Basically".

And then we'll also look at some cultural insights

about Americans, and the idea of awkward silence.

So key vocabulary,

how can you talk about your job in a very natural way?

The first thing is just to go ahead and break the ice,

to have that first contact with the person.

And you can just approach them

and say, "Hi, I'm Christina", or your first name.

"Hi, I'm Christina.

"I don't think we've met."

And then you just introduce yourself

and start a conversation.

Or, "Nice to meet you.

"So what you do exactly?"

And talking about your job and what you do

is just a very easy, neutral topic,

that you could use to start a conversation.

Now, if you're a little afraid

or if you lack a little confidence

about conversations, like small talk,

it's always a good idea to have an answer prepared

to the questions that people almost always ask,

like "What do you do?"

And this question, basically is, "What is your job?"

but it's a more natural way.

This is what you'll hear most often, "So what do you do?"

or "What do you do for a living?" means, "What's your job?"

Now, you can start with your company,

"I work at," or "I work for," it's basically the same thing.

"I work for Google."

"I work at Google."

Easy enough.

Then you could talk about your department or your sector,

what I work in.

Like, "I work in the marketing department,"

or "I work in telecommunications,"

or, "I work in pharmaceuticals."

And of course, you can combine them

for like a double whammy,

"I work for Patagonia," so for the company,

"In R&D," in the department;

so that's research and development.

Or, "I work at Apple in HR,"

and that's human resources, of course.

Maybe you wanna talk

about how long you've been at your company or in your job.

And for this, we're gonna use the present perfect tenses

and since and for.

So you might say like,

"I've been there for," plus a duration.

So for is plus period, or duration,

"I've been there for seven years,"

or, "I've been with them since,"

and then the point in time.

So, "I've been with them since 2012."

To talk about your activities,

the expression, "I'm in charge of."

So with a noun, "I'm in charge of the development

"of sustainable materials,"

or a verb plus -ing, "I'm in charge

"of creating training programs."

That's a very good expression to have

and you could use it in those two different ways.

You might talk about the activities that you do.

So, "Part of my work involves," verb plus -ing,

so, "Part of my work involves testing our products

"in the mountains,"

or, "Part of my work involves training new employees

"for our Apple stores."

And before we move on to the next part,

which is conversation strategy, I suggest

that you go back, review those expressions,

make some notes for yourself,

and see how you would use those expressions

to describe your job,

and to talk about your career

so that you always have that answer

and you have something prepared to talk

about you and your job.

And, again, you don't wanna give a presentation

about you and your job,

but you're gonna use it in a ping-pong conversation.

So, good conversation, it's like ping-pong.

The ball is the words, let's say

and you pass the ball back and forth between you

and your conversation partner.

No-one dominates, no-one makes a presentation,

you go back and forth.

So, just an example of that.

Here, you've got a short conversation between two people

and you'll see how it goes back and forth

like, "I don't think we've met, I'm Lisa."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Collin."

"So what do you do exactly, Collin?

"Oh, I work in R&D, at Patagonia, you know,

"the outdoor gear company."

"Yeah, I love your clothes!"

"Yeah, thanks, me too!

"And not just because I work there!

"So, what about you?

"What do you do?"

And you see that conversation goes back and forth.

Now, I wish I had someone here

to record that conversation with me, but you get the idea.

Now, a good idea in a ping-pong conversation,

is, of course, to ask questions about the other person,

like their job, you know, "So what do you do exactly?"

their work history, "And how long have you been doing that?"

with that present perfect continuous tense.

You can ask about their professional interests,

like, "How did you get into your field?"

And this means like,

"How did you start your job in your field?

"So how did you get into programming?

"Do you like computers?"

Try to learn a little bit about the other person.

Everybody likes someone to take interest in them.

You can ask about their start in their current company,

like, "So how did you get started at Google?"

And, "To get started at," that just means,

"How did you start at your company?"

So for example, "How did you get started at Google?

"I heard it's hard to get hired there!"

And here's another example

of just how smooth the conversation will flow

when you have these ping-pong conversations.

So, again, I'm going to read both roles here.

"So, what about you?

"What do you do?"

"Oh, I actually have my own cosmetics company,

"so I do a little bit o' everything, basically!"

"Oh wow, how long have you had your company?"

"Ah, about four years now,

"but I've worked in cosmetics for 14 years.

"I used to work at BodyShop."

"Oh, and how did you get started with your own company?"

"Basically, I wanted to create products

"that were even more eco-friendly than BodyShop,

"like all organic, only natural ingredients,

"that kind of thing."

And you can see how that conversation is very smooth,

is very natural and it's very friendly and nice.

So, in these types of conversations,

don't make a presentation.

It's like ping-pong, you go back and forth between you

and the other person

and no-one dominates the conversation.

So share the speaking time,

but also this helps you

because you're sharing the responsibility

for continuing the conversation with the other person.

Now, let's look at a specific

little aspect of spoken English, and that's, "Basically."

So, "Basically" indicates that you're just summarizing

and you can put it in different positions in your sentence,

like at the end.

"So, I do a little bit of everything, basically."

At the beginning,

"Basically, I wanted to create my own products."

Or, in the middle, "I'm basically in charge

"of creating the training programs,"

but you can put it in different places.

And it just shows that you're summarizing something

that is maybe bigger, or more complex idea.

Now, it is very typical of spoken colloquial English.

So some students ask like, "Is it too informal,

"do I sound too familiar if I use this a lot?"

No, it is neither formal nor informal

and it does not change your message or the register,

but it does add an element of natural spoken English

to the way you speak.

And if you listen to native speakers,

in natural conversations,

you probably have heard this a lot from native speakers.

Just listen for it and you'll hear it, a lot.

Now, let's have a look at some cultural insights,

all about Americans and awkward silence.

So, we often hear about the expression, "Awkward silence,"

in small talk conversations.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about,

Google awkward silence

and you'll see that it is basically a silence

between two people, or more,

that is very uncomfortable for a lot of Americans.

Not all Americans, I can't generalize about everyone,

but very often, it is uncomfortable

because silence implies closeness.

And if you've just met someone, like at a conference,

or at a networking event

or some other kind of social event,

you're probably not, yet, very close to them.

And we often say that, "A friend

"is someone you can be silent with."

So, silence actually indicates

this closeness with the person

because you don't need to make polite small talk

with your close friend.

The silence in that situation is not so awkward.

However, silence between maybe new colleagues or strangers

can sometimes be quite uncomfortable for many Americans

and that's why they talk a lot.

So, just some examples.

If you are in these situations

and you happen to be with an American,

like you work with Americans, for example,

or you're visiting an American company

or an American is visiting your company,

they will probably try to start a conversation

if you're sitting together in the company cafeteria,

at a table together,

but you don't necessarily know each other,

they'll start talking.

If you're at the coffee machine or the water cooler,

again, they will probably start some small talk conversation

like in the picture, like, "Oh, nice weather today, huh?"

"Yeah, it's really warm."

You just have to play the game

and try to make some conversation.

If you are standing in line.

If you've ever been to a supermarket in the U.S.,

maybe you've experienced this,

where Americans will just start talking to you

just to kill the time

and to avoid that, kind of, awkward silence.

If you're walking

maybe from the reception area to your office,

or to the meeting room,

very common for them to just start talking

about maybe the company, about the weather,

about anything, but to try to not have

that silence during the walk

from the reception to the meeting room, for example.

So, for a lot of Americans, like I said,

being together in the same space

with a colleague, or a new acquaintance

or sometimes even a stranger,

that can be very uncomfortable for a lot of people.

And that is why sometimes you're in the street

and an American will come and talk to you

and you think like, "Why is this person talking to me?

"What does he want?"

It's not dangerous, they don't want anything,

they just maybe don't like the silence.

Now, I know that in many cultures,

this type of silence does not make people uncomfortable

and it's often a positive thing, in a lot of cultures,

but not in American culture.

So don't be surprised when your American colleague,

or even a stranger, tries to make conversation with you;

it's totally normal.

They're just avoiding that dreaded,

awkward silence.

All right, so here's the recap on how to introduce yourself

and make conversation.

You can break the ice

and be prepared to talk about the question,

"What do you do?"

Think ping-pong conversation.

Share the conversation, share the responsibility

for keeping the conversation going.

You can use, "Basically,"

for summarizing in a very natural, colloquial way.

And remember, many Americans just talk,

and make small talk, to avoid awkward silence.

Now, next lesson is gonna be a very special presentation.

I have something that I wanna share with you,

it's called American English: Confident Conversation Skills

and we are going to look at that in the next lesson.

But, before we do that,

I have a question for you, of course.

What is one thing

that you have difficulty doing in English conversations?

Like, is it introducing yourself,

is it to know what information you can share

with other people,

to know what questions are appropriate?

I don't know, let me know, what is one thing

that you have difficulty with in American conversations?

And if you wanna get in the next lesson, go ahead

and sign up at christinarebuffet.com

so that I can send it to you.

And that is all for today's lesson.

I'll see ya' next time

and thanks so much for learning with me, see ya'.