learning spanish lesson 1 step 3

Asking someone their name is extremely easy in Spanish. Remember however that there is a formal and an informal way of asking things - so if you don't know someone's name its unlikely that you'll be informal.

The simplest way is to ask either of the following

¿Como se llama?		What is your name?
¿Cual es su nombre?		What is your name?

Why are there two ways of asking this? In most languages, there are different ways of asking the same question - use which ever you're most comfortable with, but make sure you can understand both questions. Literally, the first is asking "how are you called", but we understand this to mean what is your name.

To reply, we could answer in either of the following ways

Me llamo José		(literally) I am called José
Mi nombre es José		My name es José