Personal Information Exchange

1. Asking about Nationality and Origin

When you meet someone, a common topic is where you are from. You already know how to say "I am from France." Let's learn the questions you might hear and how to ask them yourself.

Common questions include:

• Where are you from? (Où habitez-vous / De quel pays venez-vous ?)
• What's your nationality? (Quelle est votre nationalité ?)
• What languages do you speak? (Quelles langues parlez-vous ?)

Here are the typical answers:

• I am from [Country]. → I am from France.
• I am [Nationality]. → I am French.
• I speak [Language]. → I speak French and a little English.

Now, let's watch a short video to see these questions in a conversation. A woman is registering for an English course and has to provide her personal information.

As you heard in the video, the conversation went like this:

Receptionist: What's your nationality?
Student: Mexican. I'm a student... I'm here for the summer.
Receptionist: I see. So you speak Spanish and any other languages?
Student: No, just Spanish and a little English.

2. Talking about Your Job

One of the most common questions in English is "What do you do?". This question means "What is your job?".

There are a few ways to answer this question.

• I'm a + [your job]. → I'm a nurse.
• I work in + [a field or place]. → I work in a hospital. or I work in healthcare.
• I work for + [a company]. → I work for the public hospital service.

The next video gives excellent examples, including one for a nurse, which will be very useful for you.

Based on the video, you can now build a great answer about your job:

• What do you do?

  I'm a nurse. I work in a hospital. I have to look after patients. It's a challenging job, but it's very rewarding.

To ask about someone else's job, you can say:

• What does he do? → He is a doctor.
• What does she do? → She is a teacher.

3. Asking about Family

It's also common to talk about family. Let's look at some vocabulary and questions.

First, let's learn the vocabulary for family members and jobs with this helpful image.

Study the family tree and the list of jobs. Can you see who does what? For example, "My grandfather is a farmer."

Now, let's look at the key questions you can use. You can find these question structures on the "Personal Information" vocabulary page.

Here is a summary of the main questions:

To hear these questions in a natural conversation, let's watch one more clip.

4. Practice Time!

Now it's time to put everything together. The worksheet below will help you practice asking and answering all the types of questions we learned today.

Please complete both parts of the exercise on a piece of paper or in your head.

• Part A: Read Shirley's information card and answer the questions. For example: What's her name? -> Her name is Shirley.
• Part B: Look at Mike's answers and write the correct question. For example: My surname is Peterson. -> What's your surname?

This is a great exercise for practicing his and her, which you learned in a previous lesson.

Conclusion

Excellent work! You've learned how to handle some of the most common questions in English conversations. This is a big step toward feeling more confident when you speak with people.

Key Takeaways:

• You can now ask and answer questions about nationality and origin using "Where are you from?".
• You can talk about your job using "I'm a nurse" and add details like "I have to look after patients". You also know how to ask "What do you do?".
• You can ask and answer simple questions about your family, such as "Are you married?" and "Do you have any sisters?".

In our next lesson, we will learn a very important skill for any language learner: how to ask for clarification when you don't understand. Phrases like "Can you repeat that, please?" are essential tools that will help you in real conversations.