This document discusses how to use nationality adjectives as nouns. It provides examples of nationalities ending in -sh, -ch, -ss, and -ese that can be used with "the" to refer to people from that country. It notes that nationality words ending in -an and a few others are both adjectives and nouns, taking a plural -s when referring to multiple people. Some nationalities, like Polish, have a special noun form different from the adjective. Specific groups can also be referred to with "the" plus an adjective.

1. ADJECTIVES AS NOUNS
NATIONALITIES

2. You can use „the‟ with the
nationality adjectives ending in ...
• -sh
“the English are famous for drinking tea”
• -ch
“the Dutch make fabulous cheeses”
• -ss
“the Swiss were neutral in the 2nd WW”
• -ese
“the Chinese invented paper”

3. DON’T ADD PLURAL ‘S’ TO THESE
WORDS

4. NATIONALITY WORDS ENDING IN
„AN‟ AND A FEW OTHERS...
• ... Like „Belgian‟, „Argentinian‟ ...
• ... Or „Greek‟ and „Thai‟
• ... Are both nouns and adjectives.

5. USE PLURAL ‘S’ TO TALK ABOUT
THE PEOPLE FROM THOSE
COUNTRIES

6. SOME NATIONALITIES HAVE A SPECIAL NOUN
WHICH IS DIFFERENT FROM THE ADJECTIVE
• Polish  adjective „That girl is Polish‟
Pole  noun „many Poles were killed during the
2nd WW‟
•
•
•
•
Scottish  adjective Scot/Scotsman  noun
British  Briton/Brit
Spanish  Spaniard
... Irishman, Swede, Turk, Finn, Lapp ...

7. USE ‘the’ + adjective or ‘the’ +
plural noun to talk about those
people

8. WATCH OUT!
• With any nationality you can also use the
adjective + „people‟
“The English people ...”
• To talk about one person you can’t use
a/an + adjective alone
An English  an Englishman

9. Specific groups of people
• You can use “the” + some adjectives to
talk about some specific groups in society
(the rich, the poor, the young, the sick,
the elderly ...)
• These expressions are always plural
The poor are getting poorer and the rich
are getting richer

10. One, ones
• When we don‟t want to repeat a noun
after and adjective because it‟s already
clear, use one (singular) or ones (plural)
Which one would you like?
The red one, please
Two ice creams, please. Big ones