“No, I'm self-taught.”

You're an artist. You met someone who likes your work. She asks if you have any formal training in painting. In fact, you don't have any formal training so you say:

No, I'm self-taught.

(someone) is self-taught

Someone who learned how to do something without taking classes or going to school is "self-taught". If you read books about it or got a little advice from other people, it's still OK to call yourself "self-taught".

You usually use the phrase "self-taught" to talk about people who learned complex skills that other people have to take classes for. For example:

• computer programming
• music
• a foreign language (like English!)

Being "self-taught" is seen as kind of cool and interesting in a lot of English-speaking cultures.

“Do you have any formal training?”

You meet someone who's a really talented artist. You want to know how he became so talented. You ask:

Do you have any formal training?

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