How to introduce yourself in Spanish

Hello, and welcome to Your Daily Pinch of Spanish! A blog dedicated to the study of the Spanish language, created by a native Spanish speaker and language lover. Here you'll find short lessons that go straight to the point, focused on useful Spanish words and expressions, and inspirational posts to help you in your learning.

As a first lesson post, I thought it'd be a great idea to teach you how to introduce yourself. It's the first thing you do when you first meet someone, after all!

I'm all about keeping things simple and useful for you, so I will show you three ways you can introduce yourself easily and appropriately for different settings.

First, the vocabulary used. The pronunciations are shown in parenthesis. For further information about Spanish pronunciation, you can click here, or on the link above the page, where I provide you with three tables I prepared to show you how to pronounce the Spanish alphabet.

Words in this lesson:

1- Hola (Oh-lah) - Hello, hi

2- Nombre (Nohm-breh) - Name

3- Mi (mee) - my

4 - Mucho gusto (moo-choh goos-toh) - nice to meet you; pleased to meet you

5- Llamo (jah-moh) - To be called; to call (*The first person present indicative form of the verb 'llamar', which means 'to call'; used when referring to yourself.)

6- Yo (joh) - I

7- ¿Cuál? (koo-ahl) - Which?

8- ¿Cómo? (koh-moh)  - How?

9- Es (Ehs) - To be (*present form of the verb 'ser')

10- Gusto (goos-toh) - taste, pleasure

11- Mío (Mee-oh) - Mine

12- Conocer (koh-no-sehr) - to know, to meet

Now for the expressions you can use to introduce yourself. Read them aloud, and repeat them; replace the blank space with your own name:

1. Hola, mi nombre es ___. Mucho gusto.

In English, it translates to: Hi, my name is ___. Nice to meet you.

It's short, it's simple, and it can be used in any setting, either casual or formal. It's a go to expression for this, really. You can exchange the word 'Hola', with the greeting 'Buenas' if you like; you get the same translation, but it'll be a bit more formal.

Now for the next one.

2. Me llamo ___. Mucho gusto.

It translates to: I'm (called) ___. Nice to meet you.

This one is shorter and very casual. It can be also used as a response to an introduction, when another person has introduced himself or herself to you. You can add 'hola' to the start if you like. It will make it friendlier, and you should if you are the one approaching another person. As in the above example, you can use the greeting 'Buenas' instead of the word 'Hola' to make it softer. A variation for this is to add 'yo': 'Yo me llamo __. Mucho gusto', and can be used as a response to an introduction, too.

And now the third and last example I'll give you for this part.

3. Buenas, mi nombre es ___. Gusto en conocerle.

This one is more formal. 'Conocerle' is a formal variation of 'conocerte', which translates to 'meet you'. The expression still translates to 'Hello, my name is ___. Nice to meet you.' Instead of saying only 'gusto en conocerle', you can add the word 'mucho' to make it even more formal, 'mucho gusto en conocerle.'

You may want to ask the other person their name, and to do this, simple ask one of the following:

1. ¿Cuál es tu nombre?

This translates to 'What's your name?' (*as you can see, in Spanish, to write a question, there's another question mark before the sentence.) You can use this with any of the examples above, in any setting.

2. ¿Cómo te llamas?

This one translates to 'How are you called?' which is pretty much the same as 'What's your name?'. This one can also be used in any setting, with any of the examples above.

3. ¿Tu nombre?

This one translates to 'your name?' and it's more informal. Use it in casual settings, with people your age.

You can say 'mucho gusto' before asking the other person for their name, or after they've told you their name. It makes little difference, but many prefer to say it after they've received the other person's name. (I personally just say it after I've said my name, like in the above examples.)

So, now you have some phrases you can use to introduce yourself, but what can you say when someone has introduced themselves to you first? You can use any of the above examples to introduce yourself after someone has introduced themselves to you, but you'd do a shorter version. It can simply be your own name, followed by a response to 'mucho gusto', which can be 'mucho gusto' itself (the most casual and most used response), or one of the following:

'El gusto es mio', 'El placer es mío', 'El placer es todo mío', which all translate to 'the pleasure is mine', being 'El gusto es mío' the most casual among these; 'El placer es todo mío' translates to 'The pleasure is all mine', and that's formal and barely used, at least in my experience.

To give you the most used responses to an introduction, you can respond by saying your own name, followed by 'mucho gusto', or saying 'Soy ____. Mucho gusto', which translates to 'I'm ___. Nice to meet you.'

It's very simple, and with those two you can't go wrong.

To close this little lesson, I will show you three examples of how an introduction could go, to give you a better idea:

Example 1:

Person 1: Hola, mi nombre es ___. Mucho gusto.

Person 2. (Person's name). Mucho gusto.

Example 2:

Person 1: Hola, me llamo ___. ¿Cómo te llamas?

Person 2: Hola, me llamo ___. Mucho gusto.

Person 1: El gusto es mío.

Example 3:

Person 1: Hola, mi nombre es ___. ¿Cómo te llamas?

Person 2: Soy ___. Mucho gusto.

Person 1: El gusto es mío.

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Now you should be able to introduce yourself in Spanish! These are some simple ways, some that I've used myself as a native speaker.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog and that you've learned something! My goal is to give you phrases that are useful to you, that you can learn and use right away.

I wish you success, and happy studies!