Thea0408 Posted September 12, 2015 at 02:00 PM Report Share Posted September 12, 2015 at 02:00 PM Hi, this is Thea. I am a native Chinese and a junior translator between Chinese and English. I am thrilled to find this forum with active advanced Chinese learners. I just wonder if I could post any question related to translate Chinese into English here as I sometimes fail to ascertain my translation even with the help of google and dictionaries. I'm sorry if I post at wrong place since I cannot find any section where I can ask about this.Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edelweis Posted September 18, 2015 at 11:23 AM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 11:23 AM hi Thea, as far as I know you can ask questions about translation and English usage here. As long as your questions are short and you show that you have tried to translate it yourself, people will probably try to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anonymoose Posted September 18, 2015 at 01:18 PM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 01:18 PM I am a native Chinese 虽然严格地说，这句话没有错，但很不地道。我们一般从来不用Chinese当作名词，而通常以形容词使用。当然，如果是形容词，后面还得加名词，因此应该说I am a native Chinese speaker。同样道理，如果你想说你是中国人，应该说I'm Chinese或I'm a Chinese person，但不应该说I'm a Chinese。 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelley Posted September 18, 2015 at 01:53 PM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 01:53 PM I'm a Chinese Its not usual to say this. I wouldn't say I am an English. I might say I am an English person, but I would leave the "a,an" out and say I am Chinese, I am English and so on. I would say English is my first language or English is my mother tongue but the use of native speaker of English, Chinese etc sounds odd to my ear. English is my mother tongue by the way Welcome to the forum Thea0408. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somethingfunny Posted September 18, 2015 at 04:05 PM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 04:05 PM 虽然严格地说，这句话没有错 Yeah, I feel like is we were being strict then we would say that the sentence "I am a native Chinese" is definitely wrong. Is there some grammar I'm ignorant of here? I feel like this mistake probably arises from the translation of 美国人 as 'American' or something similar. I'm with Shelley on this one, I hate it when Chinese people make this mistake, it just sounds so jarring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StChris Posted September 18, 2015 at 09:05 PM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 09:05 PM English is weird sometimes: Ok I'm an American I'm a German I'm an Italian I'm an Indian I'm a Brazilian Not ok I'm a Chinese I'm a French I'm a Spanish I'm a Swiss (actually, this last one sounds borderline ok to me) While you could add "person" on to the end of the "not ok"s to make them correct, it seems more natural to just say "I'm Chinese" or "I'm from China". I really can't think of a logical rule to this, but it does seem that the nationalities where you can just say "I'm a/an..." definitely outnumber those where you can't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StChris Posted September 18, 2015 at 09:07 PM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 09:07 PM To answer the original question, I think it's great to have more native Chinese speakers on the forums. I'm sure everyone will be happy to help translate the odd awkward sentence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelley Posted September 18, 2015 at 09:14 PM Report Share Posted September 18, 2015 at 09:14 PM From your example StChris it looks like the rule might be if it has that " ian " type ending. You can be a somethingian but not with out it. I will do some research and ask a friend of mine who is good with this type of thing and see if there is a rule. It might be one of those rules with more exception than is worth it but I will check it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orpheus Posted September 19, 2015 at 12:18 AM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 12:18 AM 'I am an English' is definitely incorrect but 'I am a Chinese' according to Oxford Dictionary is -contrary to popular belief- correct because Chinese can be used as a noun to refer to a person from China (http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/chinese_2). Michael Swan in his Practical English Usage seems to agree with this. A Japanese is also correct, but a Spanish is not because we have a Spaniard. Wierd indeed! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imron Posted September 19, 2015 at 12:34 AM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 12:34 AM If you ask any native speaker, they will tell you that 'a Chinese' or a 'a Japanese' sounds wrong and they are expecting something else.. a Chinese what?. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
li3wei1 Posted September 19, 2015 at 06:20 AM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 06:20 AM In this part of the world, 'a Chinese' is what you get from a Chinese take-away. English is definitely weird. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kamille Posted September 19, 2015 at 07:26 AM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 07:26 AM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DqvweTYTI0 All together now! I like Chineeeeeese! 你好嗎 ? 你好嗎 ? 你好嗎 ? 再見 ! This all seems very random. I often get mixed up with these too. Some demonyms are the same as the adjectives but only under their plural forms. Others don't work whatever happens and others work in any case. It's just so confusing. I mean it's even more fucked up than in French. Truly heavy stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somethingfunny Posted September 19, 2015 at 07:49 AM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 07:49 AM Interesting Orpheus, although even if it is technically correct, it'll never sound comfortable to me. And StChris, I'm not sure what it is, but even something like "I'm a German" doesn't sound right to me. Funnily, if you take the definite article out of all of them ("I'm German", "I'm Brazilian", "I'm Spanish" etc.) then they're all fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelley Posted September 19, 2015 at 04:25 PM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 04:25 PM If you say I am a German I am a Chinese I am a French I would expect something to follow, I am a German sailor or similar. If someone said to me "I am a Chinese" I would say "a Chinese what?" That why it sounds weird to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
889 Posted September 19, 2015 at 05:58 PM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 05:58 PM [Comment deleted.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shelley Posted September 19, 2015 at 08:03 PM Report Share Posted September 19, 2015 at 08:03 PM It has been explained to me that it is grammatically correct to say I am a Chinese but it is unpleasant to the ear. It is because the word "person" which would go after Chinese is not said but understood and therefore would sound better. I am a Chinese person. So that wraps it up for me. All my previous posts in this topic were incorrect in a strict sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stapler Posted September 20, 2015 at 12:42 AM Report Share Posted September 20, 2015 at 12:42 AM A part of this might be because our social attitudes have changed faster than our language. Before we could use Englishman, Frenchman, and, of course, Chinaman. With these options being removed there's a gap in the language. Countries with non-gendered nouns (Spaniard, Korean, Swede) or irreplaceable gender (German) obviously don't have a problem. I guess Japanese has always been difficult! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thea0408 Posted October 6, 2015 at 06:45 AM Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2015 at 06:45 AM Thanks for all responds! I've never noticed the "I'm a Chinese" point before and I am now. Maybe it takes a native to tell the difference and you guys are the best! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roddy Posted October 6, 2015 at 08:56 AM Report Share Posted October 6, 2015 at 08:56 AM Hi Thea, welcome to the site. Your questions are welcome - we don't have a dedicated English questions section as it's not our core business, but they're welcome here. Eg. On the other matter - what's grammatically correct and what's generally preferred are two different things. Use the less common approach and you appear to be calling attention to it and inviting your interlocutor to fill in an implied gap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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