For what you are describing, the words "speak" or "discuss" are better than "talk about". #2 is more clear because it puts the subject in front of the verb I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say you "talked about them as a group". Perhaps one of these is what you mean: "When we spoke of the people there we deemed them to be a group". "When we spoke of the people there we considered them to be a community". "When we spoke of the people there we viewed them as having a collective identity".

• Fix the punctuation here: area, country,etc, should be "area, country, etc." • The second one is much more natural to me in terms of word order. • They do have the same meaning.