Nationalities

Nationalities
Words like French can also refer to the language (e.g. a French textbook ⇒ Languages) and to the country (e.g. French history ⇒ Countries and continents).
Note the different use of capital letters in English and French ; adjectives never have capitals in French :
a French student
= un étudiant français/une étudiante française
a French nurse
= une infirmière française/un infirmier français
a French tourist
= un touriste français/une touriste française
Nouns have capitals in French when they mean a person of a specific nationality :
a Frenchman
= un Français
a Frenchwoman
= une Française
French people or the French
= les Français mpl
a Chinese man
= un Chinois
a Chinese woman
= une Chinoise
Chinese people or the Chinese
= les Chinois mpl
English sometimes has a special word for a person of a specific nationality ; in French, the same word can almost always be either an adjective (no capitals) or a noun (with capitals) :
Danish
= danois
a Dane
= un Danois, une Danoise
the Danes
= les Danois mpl
Note the alternatives using either adjective (il/elle est…etc.) or noun (c’est…) in French :
he is French
= il est français or c’est un Français
she is French
= elle est française or c’est une Française
they are French
= (men or mixed) ils sont français or ce sont des Français (women) elles sont françaises or ce sont des Françaises
When the subject is a noun, like the teacher or Paul below, the adjective construction is normally used in French :
the teacher is French
= le professeur est français
Paul is French
= Paul est français
Anne is French
= Anne est française
Paul and Anne are French
= Paul et Anne sont français
Other ways of expressing someone’s nationality or origins are :
he’s of French extraction
= il est d’origine française
she was born in Germany
= elle est née en Allemagne
he is a Spanish citizen
= il est espagnol
a Belgian national
= un ressortissant belge
she comes from Nepal
= elle vient du Népal

Big English-French dictionary. 2003.

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