6 Handy Verbs to Introduce Yourself in Spanish ne of the first things you need to do to communicate with other people is in-troduce yourself. Of course! The problem is, if your level of Spanish is not as good yet, you might find it difficult to make that first contact. Here I’m going to

show you six verbs that will help you in that first introduction.

Those six verbs are to be, to live, to have, to study, to work and to call (be named). That is, in Spanish: SER, VIVIR, TENER, ESTUDIAR, TRABAJAR y LLAMARSE. Let’s have a look, first, at the verb conjugation of each of them (in present tense) and then we’ll be looking at some practical examples.

O

Yo soy Tú eres Ella es

Nosotros somos Ustedes son

Ellos son

verbo ser

The verb SER means TO BE. But be care-ful, because the verb to be is equivalent to two different verbs in Spanish, ser y estar. There is a whole post on the uses of SER

and ESTAR in the website. Check it out!

That’s the verb to live, and as you can see it is regular. If you need to go over

how to conjugate regular verbs in Span-ish, have a look at this lesson

Yo vivo Tú vives ÉL vive

Nosotros vivimos Ustedes viven

Ellos viven

verbo vivir

Yo tengo Tú tienes Él tiene

Nosotros tenemos Ustedes tienen

Ellas tienen

verbo tener

You might be thinking, “why do I need the verb to have to introduce myself?” Well, because in Spanish we say, liter-

ally, “I have 25 years”. So the verb TENER turns out to be essential at this

stage

If at this stage it’s too much to study the whole conjugation, you can focus on the first and second person, which are you ones you’re really going to use. You’ll be us-ing the first person to speak about yourself and the second one to ask questions to the person you’re speaking to.

Now, time to see these verbs in action In the following examples, I’ll put the subject in brackets just to make it easier for you. Using the subject or not is optional most of the times, however you may sound more natural if you omit it.

[Yo] Me llamo Laura, ¿y tú? – My name is Laura, what’s your name?

Yo me llamo Tú te llamas Ella se llama

Nosotros nos llamamos Ustedes se llaman

Ellas se llaman

verbo llamarse

I should probably have started by this one, because the first thing you will want to say is your name! And you need this verb to do that. It is a regular verb; how-ever, you need to learn those particles (me, te, se…) to sound good. Yo me llamo Jose. Y tú, ¿cómo te llamas?

verbo trabajar

Yo trabajo Tú trabajas Él trabaja

Nosotras trabajamos Ustedes trabajan

Ellas trabajan

You’re lucky, because both to work and to study are regular verbs. TRABAJAR

means to work, so if that’s what you do, you might want to say that during your

presentation (but to do this you can also use the verb SER, as we’ll see in the ex-

amples later on

verbo estudiar

Yo estudio Tú estudias Él estudia

Nosotras estudiamos Ustedes estudian

Ellas estudian

And if you’re a student, this is the verb you will need to use. ¿Estudias español?

[Yo] Estudio arquitectura en la Universidad – I study architecture at University

[Yo] Soy de Valencia – I’m from Valencia

[Yo] Tengo veinte años – I’m 20 years old

¿Cuántos años tienes [tú]? – How old are you?

¿[Tú] Estudias o [tú] trabajas? – Do you study or do you work?

[Yo] trabajo en una tienda de ropa – I work in a clothing store

[Yo] Vivo en el centro de la ciudad – I live in the city center

¿Dónde vives [tú]? – Where do you live?

¡Hola! [Nosotros] Somos Ana y Pedro – Hi! We’re Ana and Pedro

[Yo] Soy de Madrid pero [yo] vivo en Vigo – I’m from Madrid but I live in Vigo

[Yo] Me llamo Manu y [yo] soy carpintero – My name is Manu and I’m a carpenter

¿Qué estudias [tú]? – What do you study?

Thanks for reading and happy learning! Remember that the more you practise, the more chances you have to see some progress. And if you really want the satisfac-tion of being able to communicate in another language, you do need to practise every day. It can be writing, reading, listening, doing exercises… it’s your choice, but do it every day.

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