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The most rampant and fossilized mistake I've heard from Chinese EFL speakers/learners is "a Chinese" where 'Chinese' was used as a singular noun, for instance, "I am a Chinese".

I know the right saying is "I am Chinese" or "I am a Chinese person" where 'Chinese' is an adjective, or "We are Chinese" where 'Chinese' acts as a plural noun or an adjective.

But some equivalent nouns can be used as a singular noun, for example, "an American", "a European", "a German", etc.

And some others cannot as 'Chinese', like "an English" and "a Japanese" are also unidiomatic.

I am just wondering if there exists a grammatical rule that draws a line between such nouns? Or is this tradition due to some kind of cultural differences or historical reasons? Or just because all elites in English world have this expression habit?

apaderno
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Lerner Zhang
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2 Answers2

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A bit of background first. Every country has a demonym, which is a word that means a citizen of that country. Because it refers to a person, it's countable, so it's correct to use "a/an" in front of it

For my country, Canada, we say "I am a Canadian", for the USA, "I am an American", and for Germany, it's "I'm a German".

The demonym for China is "Chinese", in both singular and plural forms, so "I am a Chinese" is technically correct grammar. For whatever historical reasons, the phrase "a Chinese" feels either offensive or incorrect, and Chinese abroad tend to learn quickly to drop that article.

There's no other issue with the word "Chinese" as a demonym beyond the phrase "a Chinese". The demonym "Chinese" in all these examples is correct and unremarkable:

More young Chinese enjoy visiting museums.
Northern Chinese are known for their fluffy white buns
One Chinese In Colombia

We find ways to describe people from China without saying "a Chinese", like using the adjectival form, which, confusingly is also "Chinese", or a prepositional phrase like "from China":

I am Chinese. (<-- that's the adjective, not the demonym)
She is from China.
I have Chinese ancestry. (<-- again, the adjective)

Incidentally, "a Japanese" is just fine, and the demonym for England is "Englishman" in the singular, and "an Englishman" is common and natural.

gotube
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  • Thanks! I am very interested in the historical reasons. Would you please drop me a hint to search for more information? – Lerner Zhang Oct 28 '23 at 05:31
  • @LernerZhang I have no idea what the historical reasons are. I just know that "a Chinese" should be fine, but somehow isn't. – gotube Oct 28 '23 at 05:55
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    I agree with @gotube. 'A Chinese' or 'a Japanese' were common during imperial times and now may be thought to imply offensive and racist contempt, like some shorter and more openly offensive epithets. A Somerset Maugham character: He would have liked to be there twenty-four hours a day driving the reluctant coolies to further effort. It so happened that shortly before I arrived an incident had occurred that filled him with jubilation. He had offered a contract to a Chinese to make a certain section of the road and the Chinese had asked more than Morton could afford to pay. – Michael Harvey Oct 28 '23 at 09:00
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    A demonym that was formerly used but today is considered similarly offensive is Chinaman. – Paul Tanenbaum Oct 28 '23 at 12:41
  • Downvoters, Care to leave a comment about what's wrong with my answer? – gotube Oct 29 '23 at 03:23
  • @gotube - maybe someone disagrees, as I do, that 'a Japanese' is 'just fine'? (It wasn't me that downvoted; I gave you an upvote for the answer as a whole). – Michael Harvey Oct 29 '23 at 09:30
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I am a Chinese sounds fine.

Wikipedia has a List of demonyms.

A country demonym denotes the people or the inhabitants of or from there

Chinese, English, and Japanese are in the list.

I am not aware of the existence of such a line you mentioned or how it is drawn, and even if such a line is perceived to be there I do not think it has anything to do with any elites.

You can find a list of the usages here when you search "I am a Chinese", and most of them use a Chinese as a singular noun.

Seowjooheng Singapore
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  • Thanks. I learned a while ago that language rules flow from elites to average Joes. Elites are particularly researchers who publish papers. – Lerner Zhang Oct 28 '23 at 05:33
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    @LernerZhang That may be true for languages with a central official office that dictates what's correct and what's not, but English doesn't have one of those, so every detail of the language comes from observing how people actually speak, rather than how any elites in ivory towers tell us to speak. – gotube Oct 28 '23 at 05:58
  • @gotube OK. Glad to know that. Thanks. – Lerner Zhang Oct 28 '23 at 06:46