LIVE Speaking English Introduce Yourself

let’s go that’s right nolan

gaming says omg yes it’s starting

omg yes it is welcome everybody anderson

rodriguez hi how are you it’s wonderful

to see you guys all here

tina says that it’s 21

in the evening there 2100 it is 4

o’clock here

that would be 1600.

thank you guys so much for showing up

today and being here um

can everyone hear me okay i guess that’s

one question i have

would love to know let me know in the

chat if you can hear me okay

okay someone is here for their third

lesson ever

we’ve got brian from new york one two

three begin

exactly that’s what we’re doing we’ve

started it’s great to have everybody

here

and again if you can just let me know in

chat that you can hear me

costa hi how are you otto from algeria

great thank you guys for letting me know

my sound is a little bit strange over

here but as long as you can hear me

that’s all that really matters

truth shall make you free is somebody’s

username you know what i actually

right over there i have that written

down on

a piece of paper sort of artfully drawn

i got it from my great uncle when he

died he was 97.

so it’s funny to see that same phrase

right there the truth shall make you

free

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turkey iraq brazil emilio from italy

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ecuador hi guys saudi

mexico india again great to have you

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uruguay el salvador

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wonderful to see you guys here

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rx thank you for your free lessons

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veganrx i’m assuming you are vegan i’m

intrigued i’ve been wanting to

try to eat more vegan

and i don’t prepare my food my husband

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and he is

most definitely not a vegan but i’d like

to try it so thank you for your super

chat

um okay what we’re gonna do today is

i pulled a lesson from the archive

and it is about introducing yourself so

a lot of you guys might already know

that

might already feel comfortable with that

but maybe you’ll learn a new phrase or

two also i’m gonna keep my eye on chat

while that video lesson is playing i’m

going to write down your questions

so if you see me looking down that’s

what i’m doing

and then i’ll stop the video every once

in a while and

i’ll address some of your questions in

chat so

put them in there keep them coming and

again if you do do this super chat

it allows me to see your message a

little bit more easily it stays up on my

screen longer

so that is always an option for you the

dollar sign there

a dollar or two supports the channel

supports my live streams and then

also lets me more easily see what you’ve

got to say

all right having said that let me come

over here and start our live lesson

for today again it’s on

introducing yourself in american english

here we go 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

okay well why don’t i just stop there

and ask you guys the question

do you get nervous speaking in english

even in your own language do you get

nervous introducing to yourself

yourself to people maybe you’re a shy

person let me know in the comments i

know that

i’m not a very shy person so for me

introducing myself to somebody is not a

big deal now in another language that

would be very hard because

i’m not very confident in any of the

other languages that i sort of speak

i used to be more confident i’ve lived

in spanish-speaking countries

i’ve lived in german-speaking countries

but now i

those feel pretty rusty that means

not the the skill i’m not very good at

that skill anymore

so let me know do you how do you feel

when you’re speaking english with

somebody

especially a native speaker does that

make you feel nervous a lot of people

say yes

i feel kind of nervous sometimes someone

says no ahmed

great that’s that’s good someone says i

got shy so we don’t use i got shy we

would say i

am shy or we could say i get shy

i become shy young west

hey there you are young west with the

super chat you’ve been here three super

chats in a row

great to see you you know what young

west will you super chat me your actual

name so i know what to call you

or is that your name i mean right now

i’m just saying your username

but is there a better name that i can

use to

acknowledge you if so let me know

sarah says she’s comfortable introducing

herself in english that’s awesome

the other thing that i noticed about

this video that i have to say is i

really put on too much makeup didn’t i

sometimes i go back and look at my old

videos and i’m like oh

man sometimes they just don’t look good

you know

even now i’m still figuring out lighting

even now after like 12 years of making

videos

sometimes i feel like my videos are a

little bit blurry

so i don’t always get the best um

someone says i feel shy

someone says i don’t feel confident

enough super nervous

josh says i feel more nervous when i

speak with a mexican-american

i feel shy in my native language too

someone says someone says i always feel

nervous and ernesto says i feel fine

studio avid says i’m only shy in english

well that makes sense

well guys you know what we want to do is

we want to build our confidence so one

of the ways that we do that

is with practice and education so you

learn the phrases that you might want to

know and then you practice them as much

as you can

you can use something like a random

question generator to get yourself

speaking english

without knowing ahead of time what

you’re going to be saying then there are

lots of websites

like cambly that you can connect with

the teacher for

not a whole lot of money and practice

speaking english i have some students in

my academy that also use cambly

as a way to do that but anyway let’s

keep going let’s

learn some of those phrases that we can

help us feel more confident when it

comes to speaking

in english and introducing ourselves

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 uh all connected

here are some people introducing

themselves using i’m

hi i’m beth aviau hey guys i’m olga k

i’m stacy perry uh 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

brian

okay we’re gonna take a second let me

just

make myself big again thank you so much

for the super chat maurice

so i want to answer your question

maurice super chatted me

supporting this channel really

appreciate that really appreciate you

rachel how can i say hi without sounding

too formal

well one thing that i noticed in the

lesson just now is a lot of people give

a greeting first hey guys what’s up

someone said or hi everyone so there are

different ways there

that you can start your introduction

english forever

thank you for your super chat i see you

how are you

um so you could start by hey that’s uh

that’s pretty casual hey hey

i’m and i really think that’s the best

casual way to do it hey

a greeting and then i’m just i’m i’m

rachel

i’m maurice

however you want to say your name i’m

doing sort of an american english

pronunciation there maurice

hi i’m maurice i’m maurice and you know

that m that

ending m from the i’m contraction will

link right into your name

and that’s good english that’s nice

connected english that’s very casual but

that’s what i would say

hi i’m maurice how are you or nice to

meet you or it depends on the situation

if you’re addressing a group of people

then you might pose a question that you

don’t actually expect anyone to answer

hi i’m maurice how’s everybody doing

today and then maybe you know you’ll

hear a few mumbles or something like

that

if you’re meeting just a single person

in that kind of situation hey

hey i’m maurice how are you nice to meet

you that kind of thing

um hey hi and then i’m

and your name simple that’s what i would

say keep it simple

uh honestly often the the

simplest uh way to express something is

sometimes the best way in american

english and i know that’s different from

other languages it feels like with other

languages sometimes the more you can

build on it the better the english

or the better it comes across but really

in english we go

we we go by simplification a lot

especially in spoken english we tend to

speak in shorter sentences

more breaks okay also young west would

rather go by this name while online okay

young west i will continue to call you

young west then

thank you for letting me know um so

that’s what i would say that’s

a nice casual way to introduce yourself

let’s everyone practice that right now

hi i’m rachel hey i’m rachel how are you

hey i’m rachel good to see you that kind

of thing all right let’s continue back

so we just saw a bunch of examples of

people saying i’m i’m i’m

i’m hey i’m what was his name

the one guy that we just saw i can’t

remember his name man

it’s not been that long since i was in

that program actually it has oh todd his

name was todd hey i’m todd

also in the video description to this

video i’ll put that original video if

you want to go

just watch that a couple times you can

see all the different introductions

and you can imitate practice example of

someone saying

my name is without contracting name and

is hi everyone my name is hetel janu

notice that the stress of the sentence

is still making her name the most

important part

my name is hettel 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 ray my name is rachel

that’s how we know it’s the most

important part so in the phrase

my name is mai and is are both

unstressed and so they need to be really

unimportant really quick

my my my is is is

my name is my name is if every syllable

is the same length

the same volume and the same pitch then

we lose the character of american

english

which is based on stressed versus

unstressed syllables

we can also say my name’s rachel with

the contraction

the rhythm there is da da da 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 rey

of my name that’s going to be longer and

higher in pitch

the unstressed syllable

is just like any other unstressed

syllable even though it’s in a stressed

word

my name is aaron uh what’s up guys my

name is todd

hi my name’s sarah

okay guys so there we saw people saying

my names

my name is my name’s definitely going to

be more

common than my name is we use

contractions a lot in spoken english

oh i did the wrong background didn’t i

there we go

i’ll get rid of that white background so

i don’t use it again

i want to be in this office this is not

an actual

this is a green screen image behind me

so i’m not actually in that room i’m

actually

in my office with a big green screen but

i like this feature because it lets me

shrink myself and put myself on top of

the video in a way that i think is kind

of cool what do you think

kind of cool um okay so

hi i’m or my name’s or my name is

but probably the most common is just hey

i’m

and then whatever what you insert what

makes sense

okay so we are about to meet some other

cool people here

so let us go

lee abdi giving me a super chat how are

you

thank you so much for that appreciate

you you guys the super chat is a little

dollar sign

beneath the chat intake

and uh when you super chat it highlights

it for me it lets me see your comment

more easily

and the money goes to supporting the

channel buying the equipment and the

software that i need to do these kinds

of live streams

so i appreciate that very much all right

let’s go

meet these awesome people these were

people that i got to know

by doing this program in you for youtube

la and um

yeah they were just all really cool

people all different youtubers doing all

sorts of different things

a knitting channel a skateboarding

channel

someone who did rap songs off of video

games

so it was fun to meet all these people

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 a

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 i’m from i’m from 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 oregon 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 uh i’m from upright citizens

brigade uh

channel ucb comedy

okay so my name is rachel i’m from

philadelphia

i saw some questions here in the chat

about where do i live

am i in los angeles no i’m not in la

right now

um at the beginning of the video i said

i was in la that was when i was making

this

original video back in 2013 i think

at that time i lived in new york which

you just saw me in that introduction i

said

i’m from new york and you’re from texas

and now i would have to say i’m from

philadelphia because i moved about six

years ago when i met my husband

also someone in the chat asked is tom my

partner so partner can mean a couple

different things in american english it

can be in your business partner

it can mean you’re you’re married to

that person or you’re in a committed

relationship

um tom has worked with me at rachel’s

english for

probably at least eight years i mean not

all at once he went and did different

things but no i am married to someone

named david

actually if you follow me on instagram

he was in my story

yesterday that i posted on instagram my

husband david and he

used an idiom we went out to eat

outdoors

at a restaurant and he said

we ordered some wine and he had a taste

of it he said that’s off the chain and i

made him

say that again for my camera because i

was wondering did you guys know this

idiom if not i said i was going to teach

you today in the live class and i’m

going to do that right now

the idiom off the chain means

exceptional really really good

um so actually i might even say it’s

slang it’s a little informal that is off

the chain

so you can say that if you ever taste

something that you think is amazing or

you see a movie that just blows you away

a production a live

theater thing that was off the chain off

the chain try it out

yl give me a super chat thank you so

much for your support hi teacher

could you help me pronounce my name in

english okay well

here’s the thing about english it’s not

phonetic so

the way i pronounce it is my guess yl

is what i said now another american

might look at that and might

might do it differently but i would say

but i would then probably say is that

how you say it i would ask you

so that’s the thing about when we have

words including names

that are from a foreign language or that

are un unknown to us

we never know how to pronounce them just

by looking at them

because the same letter can be

pronounced lots of different ways in

american english it’s pretty frustrating

but that’s what i would say when i see

your name i would say

yl i would guess that would be my guess

also someone asked about how to

pronounce her name carmen so in american

english that’s what we would say

carmen carmen uh

yeah okay i think i answered those

questions that i saw come through

amir from iran has learned a lot thank

you i’m so glad you guys are all here

i’m definitely starting to recognize

some of your usernames from having done

these live feeds a few times in a row

english forever says my wife’s food is

off the chain

that’s awesome can anyone else use off

the chain

in a sentence there what is something

that you would say is off the chain

what is something that you think is

exceptional absolutely

so good another phrase you could use for

that as mind-blowing

so good mind-blowing

um all right let’s keep going

so now everyone knows what the idiom off

the chain means

you know what would be interesting would

be to

go to um uglish do you guys know this

resource youglish

go to youglish and type in off the chain

and see if it comes up in any of those

videos results it might be too casual

i’m not sure but it’d be interesting to

try

oh someone says abdo says your lessons

are off the chain

thank you someone says have you ever

been to gettysburg rachel no i never

have

you know i’ve traveled traveled quite a

bit in the u.s but i’ve never been there

have you what did you think of it okay

let’s keep going with this lesson

one fun moment i noticed is when todd

introduced himself and brian said

what’s up todd what’s up what’s up

nice to meet you what’s up todd hey

what’s up todd what’s up todd

what’s up todd what’s what is that word

that’s actually what’s up i made a video

a while ago

on sup how will sometimes produce what’s

its that’s or let’s

just simply s up

now i know you’re probably not hearing

the p but maybe you do notice that my

lips are going into the position for it

what do you guys think of that sup sup

have you ever noticed that

what’s up how you doing it’s for what’s

it’s that’s let’s like if i wanted to

say let’s go i could say

let’s go let’s go i’m ready let’s

becoming just

ts so while made another super chat

thank you again this time with a comment

yes that’s how i say it but a lot of

people say it differently

i’m not surprised by that as i said

all of these vowel letters can be

pronounced many different ways

so you probably hear several different

pronunciations and none of them are

right the one that’s right is the one

that you use and you can always correct

people

if you could say oh i actually pronounce

yl and then you know they may remember

that or they may not but

it’s worth saying if it’s especially if

it’s someone that you’re going to be

seeing regularly that you’re going to

try to build some sort of friendship or

work relationship with you could say

oh i pronounce it yl that’s totally

appropriate um

george says sent me a

heart thanks sticker thank you so much

george for super stickering me i

appreciate it

again any money that comes in from the

super chat just supports this channel

the equipment

i need the software i need to do things

like this live stream

um great great great

wow nolan gaming b is really trolling my

chat that’s okay

it happens all right i’m gonna go back

and we’re gonna continue this lesson so

we’ve just learned about

what’s up being pronounced up and that’s

a very casual but common way to greet

somebody

oh what’s up or right after you say

hello hey what’s up how’s it going

and that can be pronounced instead of

what’s up it can be pronounced simply

zap like we just learned all right let

me shrink myself down again and we can

continue

the lesson

p is a stop consonant that means it’s

made up of two parts

the stop where the lips come together

tsa

and the release where the lips part

sometimes native speakers leave out the

release

sup 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 sup

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’s 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 two which

will have a schwa

instead of the uezumbu vowel 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 meat one is a stop t because the next

word begins with a consonant sound

hey guys nice to meet you okay so yeah

i’m about to teach the different way

we do that tea so we’ll get to that in a

second um i wanted to say hi to bertha

who’s in my academy who i saw here

thanks for being here and then someone

asked further about thomas tom my friend

yeah

tom is my friend and he’s been here on

the channel you know at rachel’s english

academy

there’s me and then i have three other

teachers that work with me tom

and a teacher another teacher named

rachel who i call ms stokes so it

doesn’t confuse people and another

teacher named laura

and they’re all awesome i really enjoy

them all tom is the only one that i knew

beforehand that was a friend beforehand

but they’re all

great people so i’m lucky to have such

cool people to work with

while you’re very welcome thank you for

the super chat sticker i appreciate

your support i saw someone asking about

how can i give them feedback on their

accent so

what we do in the academy is we do offer

feedback to each student who wants it

through one of our

we have a private community group

and i actually i do a little bit of that

but also the teachers i just mentioned

do a lot of that um someone says i want

to join your academy well you can go to

rachel’s rachelsenglishacademy.com

that’s where you can go to sign up you

can learn about it actually if you want

a discount code

to get um 18 off the first month

use the code just9 let me type it in

chat here

and feel free to share this it’s fine

as many people can sign up with that

code as they want just nine

it’s a way to get you a cheaper first

month so that you can try it out

ooh my green screen’s starting to change

a little bit isn’t it

i see a little bit of a fuzz there

um okay that distracted me

yes just talking about how to get

feedback that

that’s the way to do it we also offer

in-depth evaluations where we will give

you a full

score that costs extra on top of being

in the academy

but right now that’s only available to

members in the academy and there’s a

really long wait list for it

i actually just talked with tom

yesterday we’re thinking about trying

to hire another couple teachers to be in

the academy this fall so that we can

help more students

someone says what does just nine mean

that is the coupon code

that you can use at rachel’s english

academy to get a nine dollar first month

if you want

um okay great new char says tom is a

great teacher i agree

he’s been on my channel several times

and he is

a very just such a positive happy person

armando

herrera i love what you do thank you

very much keep it up thank you

for the super chat i so appreciate your

support of this channel

appreciate you thank you for being here

okay guys we’re going gonna get back to

the lesson so i’m talking oops i’m

talking about how to pronounce the t

in meat and there are a couple different

pronunciations because it’s followed by

the word you

and that can change the t let’s find out

meet you

me 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 stopped 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

nice to meet you nice to meet you nice

to meet you

and now with the ch sound nice to meet

you

nice to meet you nice to meet you nice

to meet you meet

you meet you both are okay

in closing here’s one more introduction

conversation

i had with a great guy okay so meet you

meet you

either one of those work kevin lee gave

me a super chat

something in chinese i can’t read it

unfortunately wish i could but thank you

so much for your super chat for your

support of this channel we also have

angel ramos

gave me a super sticker of a pair

a silly pair a shy pair thank you angel

i appreciate your support

i appreciate everyone for being here

um oh we got

wait was that yes we got a couple more

super chats maurice again with the super

chat thank you so much

when people need my name they write

maurice

how is my pronunciation okay

yeah so it’s true that the maurice is

how

most people would pronounce that and if

it’s a name that someone doesn’t know

i can totally see how they would write

that name with an o even though it

should be a u

and again this just goes back to that

frustrating truth

that american english is not phonetic so

a lot of people have to spell their

names

my name is rachel r-a-c-h-e-l because

there are two different ways to spell my

name and they have the exact same

pronunciation

so if it’s over the phone it’s something

important someone needs the right

spelling of my name i have to spell it

for them so maurice you could say my

name is maurice if they’re writing it

down you could say my name is maurice

m-a-u-r-i-c-e just spell it out for them

like i said i have to spell mine too

because they’re two different

pronunciations

even though my name is really common uh

that’s

what i would say you can just practice

saying

my name is maurice m-a-u-r-i-c-e

you know what else is funny is

well my last name most common last name

in the u.s

smith and even though it’s the most

common last name in the u.s over the

phone it’s sort of hard to understand

because it has

the first sound is unvoiced and the

second

sound is unvoi the last sound is

unvoiced

and unvoiced sounds are a little bit

harder to hear and

differentiate on the phone so i often

have to spell my last name too

and then when i spell it and they see

what it is they’re like oh my gosh

smith how did i not get that but

sometimes on the phone it’s tricky

so i often just spell my whole name when

i’m on the phone giving someone my name

and they need the exact spelling

studio avid how to describe my

profession

well thank you so much for the super

chat i appreciate that

that’s a good question um so

one of the things that we usually say is

the question is what do you do

and that’s how we talk about what people

do for work and then

if you can come up with the noun oh i’m

a teacher

but maybe you can’t like i could say i’m

a youtuber

or i teach english online if you can’t

come up with a good noun for it i’m an

architect then come up with a

like one sentence descriptor i design

interiors or something

you know with your verb i make videos i

teach english online

this kind of thing i would say if you

can come up with a one sentence

pretty short thing to say about it and

then if there are follow-up questions

you can elaborate

but most of the time people are looking

for that short answer

unfortunately i would say so that they

can categorize you and box you

because in america anyway

what someone does for work really like

matters to how people understand and

perceive you

i was actually really interested when i

learned that in other cultures it’s not

that way

because it’s so that way in american

english

okay just scrolling through the chat

here um

someone asked about in this video we’re

learning about the phrase

my name is i’m introducing ourself

someone says the word

is now is that s an s or a z

it’s actually a z weak is z z

z z z so it’s not is it’s not strong

it’s not that

unvoiced s sound it is a weak z is is

is which means the contraction my name’s

is also a weak ending z sound my name’s

my names okay someone says tom is hot

i’m sure he’ll like knowing that i’ll

let him know that

zobe de i’m not saying your name right i

apologize

it’s just so hard to know by looking at

the letters

okay now we’re about to finish up this

video let me just wrap it up and then i

can come back named

zachary i forgot to make myself small

first

and i can come back and answer a few