Introducing Yourself in Italian

Level 1: Beginner

As a beginner, your initial step should be to develop simple, introductory dialogues. Following an initial ciao (hello), a typical first conversation will usually focus on what is your name, where you live and what you do.

On this page, you will learn about:

Giving information about yourself
Asking others for information about themselves
Talking about where you or others come from

There are different ways of introducing yourself.

The following example offers a very informal introduction, used only in a very casual situation. We’ll see the formal examples in a different post.

We’d like to introduce you to the verb “chiamarsi” (to call oneself), an important reflexive verb that you use to introduce yourself and ask others for their names.

Introducing Yourself in Italian ciao io mi chiamo anna

Introducing Yourself in Italian ciao io mi chiamo paolo

In fact, like in English, you can introduce yourself simply by saying your name:

(Io) sono Paolo.

You can also just say your name without the “Mi chiamo” (My name is) or “Sono,” .

Introducing Yourself in Italian ciao sono Anna

Introducing Yourself in Italian ciao sono paolo

A little dialogue

Anna: Ciao, io mi chiamo Anna, e tu come ti chiami? (Hi, my name is Anna, and what’s your name?)

Paolo: Ciao, io mi chiamo Paolo. (Hi, my name is Paul.)

Talking about where you come from

In Italian, adjectives of nationality are used to describe the origin or cultural identity of a person, place, or thing. They typically come after the noun they modify and must match its gender and number.

You know how fun it may be to meet people from other countries and nationalities. Two common questions to remember are:

Da dove vieni? (where do you come from?)
Di dove sei?

The answers are as follows:

Vengo da… (I come from…)
Sono di… (I’m from…)

You now can practice with these phrases. You can add names of continents, countries, cities, or places.

Listen to the audio than read the text

Pablo: Ciao, come ti chiami?

Mary: mi chiamo Mary e tu?

Pablo: mi chiamo Pablo e tu di dove sei?

Mary: sono americana di Boston, e tu di dove sei?

Pablo: sono spagnolo di Madrid, e questa è la mia amica Nan, lei è cinese di Pechino.

Di dove sei?

Sono

americano

americana

di Boston

When referring to masculine nouns, use the suffix -o for singular forms, and when referring to feminine nouns, use the suffix -a.

Adjectives with a singular -e ending in the plural -i refer to both males and females.

Click on the Map Icon Location to learn Nationalities (with audio)

Rearrange the words and form sentences

Watch the video about introducing yourself:

How do Italian adjectives work?

Learn More

Practice Makes progress…

Speak the Words is only supported in browsers that implement the Web Speech API (Chrome browsers). You need a microphone to answer the question. Answer using your voice.

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Example: Di dove sei (Messico)? Sono messicano or sono messicana