你知道 "I'm a Taiwanese" 文法是錯的嗎？

2020-07-122024-07-09

以下的句子嚴格來說是錯誤的：

I'm a Taiwanese.
I'm a Japanese.
I'm a Chinese.

正確應該為：

I'm a Taiwanese person.
I'm a Japanese person.
I'm a Chinese person.

然而這些是對的：

I'm a American.
I'm a Australian.
I'm a Brit.

然而，如果改為 The Taiwanese 代表國籍，就又沒錯了喔！

我就這個問題跟老師討論了有三堂課有...，就算 Cambridge Dictionary 有寫了可以當作國籍人使用，但他認為就是聽起來很奇怪。他甚至幫我去問了美國與英國好友的意見，結果他的英國朋友說這樣的說法是可以接受的，反而是美國朋友覺得這樣聽起來很怪，是錯誤的。他說可能是因為他常接觸美國人，有一部份程度的被同化影響了。我們雖在很多地方看到這樣的用法，儘管一開始不是對的，但語言講久了就變成對的了。

我們討論了一下，為什麼有些後面不用加 person，有些要？

後來我靈光得出了一個結論：

只要是表示國籍的單字，也能同時代表一種語言的話，那後面就必須加上 person/people 等名詞，因為談話過程中可能會因此造成誤解，不曉得在討論語言或國籍，實際上我在對話時，如果提到 Taiwanese 如果後面沒特別加 person/people，就代表我指的是「台語」這個語言，而不是在講國籍。

後來在 List of Countries, Nationalities and their Languages 這邊看到一個國籍稱呼與語言表，大概 80% 驗證了我的歸納沒錯，雖然還是不意外有些許的例外，但是大方向大概就是這樣。

untry	Nationality (Adjective)	Nationailty (Noun)	Language
Afghanistan	Afghan	an Afghan	Dari (Persian) - Pashto
Albania	Albanian	an Albanian	Albanian
Algeria	Algerian	an Algerian	Arabic
Argentina	Argentine Argentinian	an Argentine an Argentinian	Spanish
Australia	Australian	an Australian	English
Austria	Austrian	an Austrian	German
Bangladesh	Bangladeshi	a Bangladeshi	Bengali
Belgium	Belgian	a Belgian	French / Flemish
Bolivia	Bolivian	a Bolivian	Spanish
Botswana	Batswana	a Botswanan	English, Setswana
Brazil	Brazilian	a Brazilian	Portuguese
Bulgaria	Bulgarian	a Bulgarian	Bulgarian
Cambodia	Cambodian	a Cambodian	Cambodian
Cameroon	Cameroonian	a Cameroonian	French / English
Canada	Canadian	a Canadian	English / French
Chile	Chilean	a Chilean	Spanish
China	Chinese	a Chinese person	Chinese
Colombia *	Colombian	a Colombian	Spanish
Costa Rica	Costa Rican	a Costa Rican	Spanish
Croatia	Croatian	a Croat	Croatian
Cuba	Cuban	a Cuban	Spanish
Czech Republic	Czech	a Czech person	Czech
Denmark	Danish	a Dane	Danish
Dominican Republic	Dominican	a Dominican	Spanish
Ecuador	Ecuadorian	an Ecuadorian	Spanish
Egypt	Egyptian	an Egyptian	Arabic
El Salvador	Salvadorian	a Salvadoran	Spanish
England	English	an Englishman an Englishwoman	English
Estonia	Estonian	an Estonian	Estonian
Ethiopia	Ethiopian	an Ethiopian	Amharic
Fiji	Fijian	a Fijian	English, Fijian
Finland	Finnish	a Finn	Finnish
France	French	a Frenchman a Frenchwoman	French
Germany	German	a German	German
Ghana	Ghanaian	a Ghanaian	English
Greece	Greek	a Greek	Greek
Guatemala	Guatemalan	a Guatemalan	Spanish
Haiti	Haitian	a Haitian	French / Creole
Honduras	Honduran	a Honduran	Spanish
Hungary	Hungarian	a Hungarian	Hungarian
Iceland	Icelandic	an Icelander	Icelandic
India	Indian	an Indian	Hindi / English
Indonesia	Indonesian	an Indonesian	Indonesian
Iran	Iranian	an Iranian	Persian
Iraq	Iraqi	an Iraqi	Arabic, Kurdish
Ireland	Irish	an Irishman an Irishwoman	Irish / English
Israel	Israeli	an Israeli	Hebrew
Italy	Italian	an Italian	Italian
Jamaica	Jamaican	a Jamaican	English
Japan	Japanese	a Japanese person	Japanese
Jordan	Jordanian	a Jordanian	Arabic
Kenya	Kenyan	a Kenyan	Swahili
Kuwait	Kuwaiti	a Kuwaiti	Arabiv
Laos	Lao	a Laotain	Laotian
Latvia	Latvian	a Latvian	Latvian
Lebanon	Lebanese	a Lebanese	Arabic
Libya	Libyan	a Libyan	Arabic
Lithuania	Lithuanian	a Lithuanian	Lithuanian
Madagascar	Malagasy	a Malagasy	Malagasy / French
Malaysia	Malaysian	a Malaysian	Malay / Malaysian
Mali	Malian	a Malian	French
Malta	Maltese	a Maltese	English, Maltese
Mexico	Mexican	a Mexican	Spanish
Mongolia	Mongolian	a Mongolian	Mongolian
Morocco	Moroccan	a Moroccan	Arabic / French
Mozambique	Mozambican	a Mozambican	Portuguese
Namibia	Namibian	a Nambian	English
Nepal	Nepalese	a Nepalese	Nepali, English
Netherlands	Dutch	a Dutchman a Dutchwoman	Dutch
New Zealand	New Zealand	a New Zealander	English / Maori
Nicaragua	Nicaraguan	a Nicaraguan	Spanish
Nigeria	Nigerian	a Nigerian	English
Norway	Norwegian	a Norwegian	Norwegian
Pakistan	Pakistani	a Pakistani	Urdu, English
Panama	Panamanian	a Panamanian	Spanish
Paraguay	Paraguayan	a Paraguayan	Spanish
Peru	Peruvian	a Peruvian	Spanish
Philippines	Philippine	a Filipino	Tagalog / Filipino
Poland	Polish	a Pole	Polish
Portugal	Portuguese	a Portuguese person	Portuguese
Romania	Romanian	a Romanian	Romanian
Saudi Arabia	Saudi	a Saudi (Arabian)	Arabic
Scotland	Scottish	a Scot	English
Senegal	Senegalese	a Senegalese person	French
Serbia	Serbian	a Serbian	Serbian
Singapore	Singaporean	a Singaporean	English, Malay, Mandarin, Tamil
Slovakia	Slovak	a Slovak	Slovak
South Africa	South African	a South African	Afrikaans, English, + 9 more
South Korea	Korean	a Korean	Korean
Spain	Spanish	a Spaniard	Spanish
Sri Lanka	Sri Lankan	a Sri Lankan	Sinhala, Tamil
Sudan	Sudanese	a Sudanese person	Arabic, English
Sweden	Swedish	a Swede	Swedish
Switzerland	Swiss	a Swiss person	German, French, Italian, Romansh
Syria	Syrian	a Syrian	Arabic
Taiwan	Taiwanese	a Taiwanese person	Chinese
Tajikistan	Tajikistani	a Tajikistani	Tajik (Persian)
Thailand	Thai	a Thai person	Thai
Tonga	Tongan	a Tongan	English, Tongan
Tunisia	Tunisian	a Tunisian	Arabic
Turkey	Turkish	a Turk	Turkish
United Arab Emirates	Emirati	an Emirati	Arabic
(The) United Kingdom	British	a Brit	English
(The) United States	American **	an American	English
Uruguay	Uruguayan	a Uruguayan	Spanish
Venezuela	Venezuelan	a Venezuelan	Spanish
Vietnam	Vietnamese	a Vietnamese person	Vietnamese
Wales	Welsh	a Welshman a Welshwoman	Welsh / English
Zambia	Zambian	a Zambian	English
Zimbabwe	Zimbabwean	a Zimbabwean	16 languages