Aurora Ielpi

How to introduce others in Spanish

introduce people in Spanish

In this second class in our Basic Spanish course we’re going to learn how to introduce people in both formal and informal situations. This class assumes that you already know how to introduce yourself in Spanish.  If you don’t, then check out the first class in this course. 

Every now and then there’s a social situation where you need to introduce the person you’re with to somebody else.

Maybe you’re out with your significant other and you bump into a colleague. Or maybe you have family visiting and you find yourselves sharing a lift with your next-door neighbour.

No matter what the situation is, it’s always advisable to say the right thing. Keep reading and find out how.

This is… / These are…

Spanish nouns (and adjectives too! but more on that in another lesson) change their endings to show whether they are masculine or feminine, singular or plural. Every noun has its own ending and it gives you all that information with a vowel or a consonant, and with or without an -s.

To introduce a man, use Este es…

  • Este es Carlos.
    This is Carlos.

To introduce a woman, use Esta es…

  • Esta es Mercedes.
    This is Mercedes.

To introduce two or more men, use Estos son…

  • Estos son Carlos y Paco.
    These are Carlos and Paco.

We also use this phrase to introduce two or more people of different sexes.

  • Estos son Carlos, Sofía y Ana.
    These are Carlos, Sofía and Ana.

To introduce two or more women, use Estas son…

  • Estas son Sofía y Ana.
    These are Sofía and Ana.



Examples from Social Media

Sometimes you’ll want to say what that person’s relation to you is:

This is my girlfriend:

This is my dog:

These are my maternal grandparents:

These are my best (female) friends:

A little bit of Vocabulary

Here are some nouns that might be useful:

mi amigo my friend (male)
mi amiga my friend (female)
mi novio my boyfriend
mi novia my girlfriend
un compañero de trabajo a co-worker
un compañero de la universidad a classmate (in university)
mi padre my father
mi madre my mother
mis padres my parents
mi hermano my brother
mi hermana my sister
mis hermanos my siblings

If you want to turbo-boost your vocabulary, have a look at our Spanish Vocabulary Section, with printable posters and worksheets for you to download absolutely free-of-charge.

Something to bear in mind

So far, we’ve seen that there are two ways of saying “this” and two ways of saying “these”.

Masculine Feminine
singular plural singular plural
este (this) estos (these) esta (this) estas (these)

However, there is one more way in Spanish to say “this”. But it never refers to people. It can refer to an object, a place or a situation, so you should never use it to introduce someone. It is only used to identify something other than a person. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s the pronoun Esto.

We could say: Esto es una clase de español (This is a Spanish class.)

  • Esto es una clase de español.
    This is a Spanish class.

But we would never say Esto es mi vecino Juan, because then we would be saying “This thing is my neighbour Juan.”

Check out these tweets for some examples of how esto is used:

This is a work of art:

This is a lot:

Want some video?

Here’s a clip from the film 300. It’s dubbed in peninsular Spanish, so you can watch the characters speaking just like any Spaniard would. See if you can spot how many times the word esto appears. Do they use it to introduce people?

 

 

There are other ways of introducing someone. If you need to be slightly more formal, you can use the phrase Te presento a…

Te presento a mi amiga Sofía.

We could translate this as “Meet my friend Sofía”.

Te presento a mi jefe, Pablo.  Meet my boss, Pablo.

Take a look at this poster for a Mexican film called (can you guess?) Te presento a Laura.

Te presento a Laura

The good thing about these phrases to introduce someone is that you can use either in any type of situation. So whichever way you choose, as long as you don’t say something like Esto es mi padre (“This thing is my father”), you’re bound to get it right!

Basic Spanish Course & Spanish Phrases

We’ve loads more Spanish classes in our Basic Spanish Course. Or have a look at our Spanish Phrases section for videos of native Spanish speakers.


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