How to Introduce Yourself American English Pronunciation
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 you’ll hear 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, uhhh. All connected. Here are some
people introducing themselves using “I’m”.
Hi. I’m Beth Aweau.
Hey guys. I’m Olga Kay.
I’m Staci Perry.
Um, 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 Bryan.
Here’s an example of someone saying “my name
is,” without contracting “name” and “is”.
Hi everyone. My name is Hetal Jannu.
Notice that the stress of the sentence is
still making her name the most important part.
My name is Hetal. 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,
Ra-, My name is Rachel. That’s how we know
it’s the most important part. So in the
phrase “my name is”, “my” and “is” are both
unstressed, and so they need to be really
unimportant, really quick, my [3x], is [3x].
My name is, my name is. If every syllable
is the same length, the same volume, the same
pitch, then we loose the character of American
English, which is based on stressed vs. unstressed
syllables.
We can also say “My name’s Rachel”, with the
contraction. The rhythm there is 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, Ra-,
of my name that’s going to be longer and higher
in pitch. The unstressed syllable, -chel, is just
like any other unstressed syllable, even though
it’s in a stressed word.
My name’s Aaron.
Uh, what’s up guys. My name’s Todd.
Hi, my name’s Sara.
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 the 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 [3x]. 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, where, again?
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.
I’m from Upright Citizens' Brigade, uh,
channel: UCBcomedy.
One fun moment I noticed is when Todd introduced
himself and Bryan said “Ts’up Todd?” Tsup,
tsup.
Nice to meet you.
Tsup, Todd? [4x]
Tsup. What is that word? That’s actually
“what’s up?” I made a video a while ago
on “tsup”: how we’ll sometimes reduce “what’s”,
“it’s”, “that’s”, or “let’s” to simply “ts”.
Tsup? Now I know you’re probably not hearing
the P, but maybe you do notice my lips are
going into the position for it. Tsup.
P is a stop consonant. That means it’s made
up of two parts. The stop, where the lips
come together, tsup, and the release, where
the lips part. tsup. Sometimes native
speakers leave out the release: tsup?
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. Tsup?
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 was 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 “to”, which
will have a schwa instead of the OO as in
BOO vowel, to, 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 “meet”. One is a stop T, because
the next word begins with a consonant sound.
Meet you, meet 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 stop 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. [4x]
And now with the CH sound.
Nice to meet you. [4x]
Meet you, meet you. Both are ok.
In closing, here is one more introduction
conversation I had with a great guy I met
in LA named Zachary.
Hi.
Oh, hey.
I’m Rachel.
I’m Zach.
Hi Zach, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
So, we’re here at the YouTube Space. So
you must be a YouTuber.
Yep. Make videos for kids.
Yeah? What’s your channel?
Pancake Manor.
Oh wow.
What’s yours?
Mine’s Rachel’s English.
Oo.
So I teach English on my channel.
Wow. You must have a lot of subscribers.
I do, I do. But actually, let’s talk about
that word. It’s subscribers, with an R.
Oh. Subscribers.
Subscrrrr-, hold out the R.
Subscrr, rr, -scribers.
Yeah, that’s it!
Subscribers.
Perfect.
Yeah.
I’m going to tell my users about your channel,
so they can go see you.
Cool, thank you.
Yeah. It was great to meet you.
Nice to meet you.
Ok, have a great day.
You too.
Alright, take care!
Bye! Subscribers. Yeah.
Thanks so much to all the wonderful people
who were in this video. To learn more about
them and their YouTube channels, follow the
links in the video or in the video description.
Practice your English. Make a video introducing
yourself, and post it as a video response
to this video on YouTube. Or, just introduce
yourself in the comments. I can’t wait to
meet you.
That’s it, and thanks so much for using Rachel’s
English.