nǐ hǎo. In this lesson, we are gonna talk about nationality. First let's learn how to
say China. It's zhōng guó, zhōng guó. Zhōng guó literally means the middle kingdom,
zhōng means middle and guó means country or kingdom. Chinese people used to believe
china was the center of the world. Now say china again, please pay attention to your
tone. Zhōng guó, zhōng guó, zhōng guó. Now let's learn how to say a chinese person
or chinese people. In english when you say she's chinese and she speaks chinese. The
word chinese in these two sentences actually refers to two different things. In the sentence
she is chinese, the word chinese refers to a chinese person. In the sentence she speaks
chinese, the word chinese refers to the chinese language. We have two different for these
two different concepts. Remember a chinese person is basically a china person. Here's
how you say person or people, rén, rén. Rén is the second tone, the rising tone,
rén.The pinyin spelling of rén is r-e-n. En in chinese is pronounced as en as in taken.
Please watch out for the r sound here, it is very different from the r sound in english.
In chinese, the english letter r is pronounced as ri, ri. It sounds like the s in Asia or
ge in garage and mirage. It's a very french sound. Now say a person or people again, rén.
You might have noticed already that chinese in general has no plural forms for nouns,
there's no distinction between singular and plural nouns, which means there's no equivalent
of adding 's' as it is done in english. That's why both people and person are one word, rén.
Now let's say chinese person, literally china person. Zhōng guó rén,Zhōng guó rén.
Do you remember how to say I am? wǒ shì. Now say I am chinese or I am china person.
wǒ shì zhōng guó rén. Now say you are chinese. nǐ shì zhōng guó rén. Now let's
learn how to say I am American. First, here's how you say America, the country. Ame, me,
me, me, měi guó. Měi sounds like part of America and it means beautiful. Remember how
to say person or people again? rén. Now let's put America and person together and we will
get American person. Měi guó rén. měi guó rén. Now let's say I am American, wǒ
shì měi guó rén, wǒ shì měi guó rén. It's pretty easy to figure out your nationality
in chinese. For example, chinese people call Britain yīng guó, which sounds like England.
English people are England, yīng guó, plus person , rén. Now let's say British people
or English people. Yīng guó rén. Now say hello I'm John, I'm Ameican. Nǐ hǎo, wǒ
shì john. Wǒ shì měi guó rén. Again, Nǐ hǎo, wǒ shì john. Wǒ shì měi guó
rén. Great. Now let's say Hello! You are yangyang , you are chinese. nǐ hǎo, nǐ
shì yāng yāng, nǐ shì zhōng guó rén. Again, nǐ hǎo, nǐ shì yāng yāng, nǐ
shì zhōng guó rén. If you want to learn how to other country names and nationalities,
please check out out website. In our next lesson, we are going to let the whole world
know that you can speak a little chinese. Until then, study hard. Zài jiàn.