Introducing yourself in other languages - English, American, French and German

You may need to introduce yourself in these situations:
Calling to book or change an airline ticket or reservation.
Checking into a hotel.
Checking in at the airport.
Claiming your table at a restaurant.
Meeting a colleague at an office.
Meeting the family of the bride and groom at a wedding.
Meeting the mourners at a funeral.
Claiming lost luggage.
Searching for your lost children, spouse, friend, group.


English
Hello.(Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening.) My name is ... (Angela Lansbury). How do you do?
(Informal Americanism: Pleased to meet you.)
(First name then surname.)


American English
Hi. My name is ... Pleased to meet you.


French
Bonjour. (Good day.) Je m'appel Angela Lansbury. (Literally or transliteration I myself call; equivalent of I call myself.)


German
Guten tag / morgen/ abend (Good day, morning, evening) Meine namen ist (my name is)...

I shall shortly add in my next post:
Bulgarian
Romanian
Chinese
Russian
Hebrew
Arabic
Tamil

Call to Action
Walk around saying them to yourself until you can speak fast without hesitation nor stammering.

Write those you need in your diary. Write them on the front page. And/or the back page or inside cover. Write them on the diary page before your next trip.
Add more as you learn them. Copy them.

Useful Websites
UK
visitbritain.org
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
visitlondon.com

FRANCE
visitfrance.co.uk

GERMANY
germany.travel/en
USA
visittheusa.co.uk

LANGUAGES
duolingo.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, Teacher of English and other languages. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Embarrassing Moments When Speaking And Teaching English

Problem
How do you cover up your own mistakes and those of other people? Several speakers' embarrassing moments come to mind:

UN - Wrong Speech
The Greek Rep who read the Portuguese Speaker's speech. The previous speaker's speech was left behind on the lectern, so the next speaker, forgetting to check, just started reading.

Mark your speech with your (speaker's) name and the speech title.

Apple and Technology
Steve jobs and technology failure. You might wish to have a presentation which includes slides. Nowadays slide presentation options include sequences of numbered slides, with hidden comments appearing only to the presenter. Three systems I know of include:
Powerpoint,
Keynote on Apple Mac devices, or
Mosaic - which instead of slides in numbered sequence shown in a side bar down the left hand margin, presents your slides like a chess board so you can move slides around.
A system for structuring thoughts before you start is to draw a sun and rays effect, radiating out from a central theme slide, or a spider diagram.

Wrong Pronunciation
Etiquette expert - I was introduced as, "Angela Lansbury, an expert on 'Etiquay'."
Looking back on it, to save the face of the person introducing me, I could have pretended it was a standing joke between myself and the speaker, who is always teasing me by saying the wrong word. Instead I avoided the word, until a few minutes later when I started automatically using it correctly. Later somebody in the audience who was puzzled asked me the correct pronunciation. I demonstrated on the board the French endings et as in ballet, bouquet, pronounced with an AY, and etiquette, silhouette, as in the word better, pronounced ET.

Correcting Your Mispronounced Name
This often happens.
The name is mispronounced,
the introducer can't find the speaker's name ,
the speaker has been changed and the introducer reads the name from a programme which has not been corrected.
The credentials are wrong.

The speaker says,
"Actually, I am not Sil-var - I am Sil - ver.
"I am no longer the president; I am the past president."
"I am not the President; I am just an ordinary member."

The trick to maintaining the aplomb of both introducer and speaker and confidence of the audience is to be confident and positive. Firstly, say your own name clearly and slowly. Many people mutter introductions to themselves, racing over their own names, their job description and their company name which may be unfamiliar to listeners. Do not mutter, "I'm-slvr-n-I'm-projmgr-a-PXK."

"Welcome to you, Mr/Mrs/Miss Doctor ... - what a pleasure to have you with us. Please welcome .... Mr/Mrs/Doctor ..."

When you are introduced, ideally smile and say it three times so help the introducer and audience: "I am the expert on the pronunciation of my name. It's Sil- ver! My father was Mr Sil-ver, my mother was Mrs Silver, and I am Sylvia Silver."

Author
Angela Lansbury,