Introductions
Watch the following conversation between two people meeting each other for the first time.
Take notes of what is NOT natural or could be said differently to sound more natural.
Haruna: Hi.
Nice to meet you.
Vince: Oh.
Hello.
Haruna: My name is Haruna.
I’m from Tokyo Japan.
I’m 28 years old.
I’m an accountant.
I work for a big company called Smart Corporation.
It’s located in Shinagawa.
It’s a really great company.
My hobbies are cooking and sleeping.
I have traveled to Australia, Canada and the US.
I really like Italian food.
I want to travel to many countries in the future.
I have five people in my family.
My mom, my dad, my sister and my grandparents.
Vince: Ahh…
Nice to meet you Haruna.
Did you think Haruna introduced herself naturally?
How could Haruna have sounded more natural when meeting someone for the first time?
Let’s take a look at a few things that could have helped Haruna sound more natural.
1.
People don’t generally make a full self-introduction when meeting someone for the first time.
The natural way for people to get to know each other is to ask each other questions.
Let’s take a look at an example:
Haruna: So, what do you do for a living?
Vince: I’m a software engineer.
How about you?
Haruna: Oh, how interesting.
I’m an accountant.
Vince: Oh, who do you work for?
Haruna: I work for Sun Systems.
Have you heard of them?
Notice how in that short conversation, they 1. took turns asking questions.
And 2.
They asked follow up questions to keep the conversation going.
2.
We don’t usually tell people how old we are when introducing ourselves for the first
time.
Note that in most circumstances, it is considered rude to ask people their age.
If you really want to know, you should start by asking them, “May I ask you a personal
question?”
3.
We don’t usually use the word “hobby or hobbies”.
There are more natural ways to express this idea.
For example:
a.
What are you into?
b.
What do you do for fun?
c.
Are you interested in sports?
d.
Do you like to cook?
4.
“Sleeping” is not a hobby or interest.
This will not make you sound interesting to the person that you are talking to.
Actually, it will make you sound quite boring.
5.
It isn’t natural to state how many people you have in your family.
Another more natural way to express this idea is…
“I live at home with my sister, parents, and grandparents.”
Try to put these into practice the next time you are meeting someone for the first time.
That’s all for today’s lesson.
Thanks for watching.
See you next time.