Question about posting?

[Thea0408]

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!

[edelweis]

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.

[anonymoose]

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。

[Shelley]

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.

[somethingfunny]

 

 

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.  

[StChris]

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.

[StChris]

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.

[Shelley]

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.

[Orpheus]

'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!

[imron]

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?.

[li3wei1]

In this part of the world, 'a Chinese' is what you get from a Chinese take-away.

 

English is definitely weird.

[Kamille]

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.

[somethingfunny]

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.

[Shelley]

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.

[889]

[Comment deleted.]

[Shelley]

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.

[stapler]

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!

[Thea0408]

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!

[roddy]

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.