How to use adjective of nationality in Chinese? for people vs objects I know that adjectives of nationality are usually made of 2 parts: the country name and the character 人。 For example Italian = 意大利

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How to use adjective of nationality in Chinese? for people vs objects I know that adjectives of nationality are usually made of 2 parts: the country name and the character 人。 For example Italian = 意大利人 and so on..I usually use the adjectives when i refer to people and it is correct this way, but what if i want to refer to an object instead of people? For example an Italian car..since the kind of adjective i used before contains the character "人" that means "person", can i only use it only when i refer to people or not? Please help me to clear this doubt :) .

Sep 21, 2013 12:43 PM

Answers · 16

I seem to understand your question. Not quite sure, still. But I can tell that, 他是意大利人。 You can't say"他是意大利"。这是意大利的车。 More often, we say, 这是意大利牌子的车。这是意大利产的车。 Or you can say, 这车是意大利产的。这车是意大利的。

September 22, 2013

地点 + 人/物指人时，地点 means the place where they come from or born in, their motherland. e.-你是哪里人？ -我是意大利人。 If you have identification card of USA, have to say: 我是一个美籍意大利人。And usually don't use 我是一个美国人。指物时，地点 means where this project made from. e.-这是哪里产的车？是谁的？ -这是辆德国车，是一个意大利人的车。 If you want to say a car belongs to a man, you should +的 after 地点，like 's in English.

September 21, 2013

意大利 = Italy (country) 意大利(的) = Italian (adj) 意大利人 = the Italian (man) 中国 = China 中国（的） = Chinese (adj) 中国人 = the Chinese (man) 中国人开意大利车。 = A Chinese is driving an Italian car.

September 22, 2013