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English question regarding word ‘Chinese’
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md1101 –
i did a google seach for the phrase “He is a Chinese” and nearly all of the returns (in the
snippets) have Chinese used as an adjective. as in “He is a Chinese man/American” etc. There are a
few that dont have it that way but they seem to be always written by a Chinese writer or other
foreigner like a professional translator. I guess anyone learning English as a second language
would be prone to using it as a noun because its defined that way.
I would tell my students (if i ever teach in china again) not to use it as a noun though so they
sound a little more native. As Roddy said, you are otherwise left hanging ‘yes.. a Chinese what?!’
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andrewfz –
wierd….i never thought of it before…
I guess some nationalities sound good as a singular noun.. (a german, an australian, an afghan, an
italian, a Canadian, an indonesian).
Others just dont work as singular nouns. (plural OK)…in this category i would list chinese,
english, irish, scottish, french. I am a welshman rather than a welsh….
Some even have specific words for singular nouns…a Scot, a Dane, a Swede.
johnd –
Quote:
…in this category i would list chinese, english, irish, scottish, french.
a Chinaman, an Englishman, a Scot, a Frog
The word Chinaman has been poluted by racism and is now lost in the mists of time. But would it
have been the correct word to use?
HashiriKata –
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnd
The word Chinaman has been poluted by racism and is now lost in the mists of time. But would it
have been the correct word to use?
The word itself is fine but it usually ends up taking the colour we’ve painted it with. So much so
that, in contrast with the word “Chinaman”, the word “Englishman” actual brings up a very
positive, sometimes even romantic, image. The same goes with:
Quote:
Originally Posted by wushijiao
I think American racists generally refer to Asians using their noun forms: ie. He’s a Jap/He’s a
Chinese/He’s a Vietnamese/ Look at that (insert racial slur here)
but the negative association doesn’t apply to “Canadian”, “Australian”, or any nationality of the
“white league”.
Anyway, enough of the digression and the following is what I’ve come to say:
a) When we speak impersonally or in the 3rd person, it’s generally ok to refer to someone as a
Chinese, an Australian, an American, a German, etc:
He’s a Chinese/ an Australian/ an American/ a German.
She married a Chinese/ an Australian/ an American/ a German.
b) However, when we speak in that person’s presence (in the 1st or 2nd person), it usually sounds
much better with the adjective forms:
Are you Chinese/ Australian/ American/ German?
Yes, I’m Chinese/ Australian/ American/ German.
So when a Chinese person says “I’m a Chinese”, he doesn’t sound quite right because it’s against
the above observations.
md1101 –
yes… but i still think it sounds wierd to say “She married a Chinese” it would have to be “She
married a Chinese guy/man”.
roddy –
Agreed. Again, I’d want to ask “She married a Chinese what?”. Which might be rude.
kudra –
Quote:
Again, I’d want to ask “She married a Chinese what?”.
Yeah, bummer, English being so context dependent.
Lu –
Quote:
Originally Posted by mickdriscoll
yes… but i still think it sounds wierd to say “She married a Chinese” it would have to be “She
married a Chinese guy/man”.
Quote:
Originally Posted by roddy
Again, I’d want to ask “She married a Chinese what?”. Which might be rude.
I’d think ‘She married a Chinese man’ is a bit redundant. What else would she have married, a
Chinese fish? Of course, she might have married a Chinese woman, but as that’s not obvious, it
would make sense to explicitly say it was indeed a woman if that was the case.
But actually ‘She married a Chinese’ sounds a little bit racist to me. It’s ok to say ‘she married
a lawyer’ or ‘she married her childhood sweetheart’, but if the person she married happens to be
Chinese, I’d rather say ‘She got married. Her husband’s from China.’ I think this makes it sounds
more like ‘isn’t that interesting’ instead of ‘Chinaman’.
md1101 –
Quote:
But actually ‘She married a Chinese’ sounds a little bit racist to me
Obviously im missing some historical mis-treatment of the Chinese (or perhaps present day racism?)
here but saying that the above sentence sounds racist seems to imply being ‘Chinese’ is somehow
unfortunate. Then again i also think there is nothing wrong with saying Jap being short for
Japanese person. But i hear due to the way they were referred to in WW2 it is offensive to be
called a Jap.
Maybe it depends on where you’re brought up as well. From what i’ve heard from my American friends
there is a lot more racism there than here in Oz.
HashiriKata –
Quote:
“She married a Chinese”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roddy
Again, I’d want to ask “She married a Chinese what?”.
I think you must be speaking English with a kind of confused intonation . I think “She married a
Chinese” and “She married a Chinese… (something)” should have completely different intonations
at the word “Chinese”.
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