Nationality names and adjectives

It's important to distinguish between nationality adjectives and nouns:

He is from Poland. (noun)
He is Polish. (adj.)
He is a Pole. (noun)

We should use an indefinite article with a noun. Nationality adjectives are also used to describe foreign products, culture and history while the nouns describe the people of that country. Remember to use capital letters for these words.

There are eight basic forms (suffixes) of nationality adjectives:

-ian (Italian, Norwegian)
-ean (Chilean, Korean)
-an (American, Mexican)
-ese (Chinese, Japanese)
-er (Icelander, New Zealander)
-ic (Icelandic, Greenlandic)
-ish (English, Irish)
-i (Iraqi, Pakistani)


Here are some rules to take into account:

1) When the name of a nationality ends in the sound of -ch, -ss, -sh or -es, the name of the nationality must usually be preceded by the and we use a plural verb.Remember not to add 's' to these words, they are adjectives!

The Chinese are very hard-working.

2) Nationality words ending in -an and a few others, for example Greek and Thai are both adjectives and nouns. To talk about the people from that country we use a plural noun ending in -s:

The Greeks are very talkative and extrovert

3) Some nationalities have a special noun for the people which is different from the adjective: Polish (adj.), Pole (noun).

To talk about the people we can say THE + ADJ or THE + PLURAL NOUN:  

The Poles or The Polish 

4 ) To talk about ONE person from a country you can't use a/an + adjective: A Japanese (wrong)  

We should say a Japanese man/woman/person Note that we can say an Italian/a Turk/a Pole, etc., because these are nouns.


****To talk about specific groups of people in society we can use THE + ADJ.
A plural verb must be used:

The blind attend special schools.    
The poor do not own their own homes.
The rich used to marry for money.

In the above examples, the blind has the meaning of blind people, the poor has the meaning of poor people, and the rich has the meaning of rich people.