English: Giving Personal Information

Level: A1. Whenever you sign up, check in or meet someone new, you give a few personal details. English uses short, fixed sentence frames for each one — learn the frame and just change the word at the end.

By the end of this page you can…

…say your name, age, country and nationality, address, phone number, email and job, and fill in a simple form.

Name

Say your name with I’m … or My name is …. On forms, your first name (given name) and your surname / last name (family name) go in separate boxes.

• I’m Ana. / My name is Ana Costa.
• To check a name you spell it out: How do you spell that?

Age

English says age with the verb be, plus an optional years old:

• I’m 25. / I’m 25 years old.
• To ask: How old are you?

Country and nationality

Where you come from and your nationality are two different words. Use from + the country, or the nationality adjective on its own. Both take a capital letter.

• I’m from Brazil. → I’m Brazilian.
• To ask: Where are you from?

Address

Use live in for a town or country and live at for a full street address:

• I live in London.
• I live at 12 Oak Street.
• A British postcode (American zip code) finishes the address.

Phone number

Introduce a number with My (phone) number is … and read the digits one by one. The digit 0 is usually said oh in British English or zero. A repeated digit can be double: 44 → double four.

• My number is oh seven double-nine, three four one…
• To ask: What’s your (phone) number?

Email

Read an email address with two key words: @ is at and . is dot.

• [email protected] → ana dot costa at mail dot com
• To ask: What’s your email (address)?

Job

Say your job with be + a/an + the job, or work as:

• I’m a teacher. / I’m an engineer. (use an before a vowel sound)
• I work as a nurse.
• To ask: What do you do? (this means ‘what is your job?’)

Filling in a form

Common form labels and what they mean:

• Surname / Last name — your family name.
• First name / Given name — your personal name.
• Date of birth (DOB) — the day you were born.
• Nationality — e.g. Brazilian.
• Occupation — your job.
• Address and Postcode / Zip code.

Example sentences

Press play and say each detail out loud.

Quick recap before you practise.

Practice

How to say it

A few sounds in this lesson catch English learners out.

• @ is always said at, and . is dot — never ‘point’ or ‘arroba’.
• The digit 0 in a phone number is usually oh (like the letter O) in British English, or zero.
• The letters G (“jee”) and J (“jay”), and E (“ee”) and I (“eye”), are easy to confuse when you spell a name aloud — say them slowly.
• Nationality words stress a clear syllable: bra-ZIL-ian, JAP-a-nese, I-TAL-ian.

Quiz

Next

• Previous lesson: English: Telling the Time
• Next lesson: English: Family Members
• New here? Start with Start Learning English Here