3.1 Nationalities

In Chinese, many countries can be identified as they have ‘guó 国’ at the end. For example:

• zhōng guó 中国 = China
• yīng guó 英国 = Britain
• fā guó 法国 = France
• dé guó 德国 = Germany

There are, however, other countries and cities that do not have ‘guó 国’ at the end, such as:

• xī bān yá 西班牙 = Spain
• yì dà lì 意大利 = Italy
• lúnd ūn 伦敦 = London
• bĕi jīng 北京 = Beijing

Once you know the name of the country, nationalities in Mandarin Chinese are quite easy to learn. To say the nationality you only need to add the word ‘rén’ – which, as you’ve already learned, means ‘person’ – to the country name.

To find out someone’s nationality you would ask:

• 你是哪国人? nĭ shì nǎ guó rén? = Where are you from?

The reply to this question would then be:

• 我是中国人 wǒ shì zhōng guó rén = I’m Chinese.

• 我是英国人 wǒ shì yīng guó rén = I am British.

• 我是西班牙人 wǒ shì xī bān yá rén = I’m Spanish.

Then, if you want to know the specific area in the country someone is from you would ask:

• 你是中国什么地方人？ nĭ shì zhōng guó shén me dì fang rén? = What place in China are you from? (lit. you are China what place person?)

• 您是英国什么地方人？ nín shì yīng guó shén me dì fang rén? = Whereabouts in the UK are you from? (lit. You are UK what place person?)

In response to this, you may hear Chinese people say:

• 我是北京人wǒ shì bĕi jīng rén = I’m from Beijing (lit. I’m Beijing person).

The question 什么地方... shén me dì fang means ‘What part of’. As you can see, the word order in Chinese differs to that of English, but you will learn more of that as you develop further learning of the language.