Japanese Beginner Phrases Podcast 9

Here is how you say Japan the country.

日本 nihon

And the Japanese language

日本語 nihongo

Notice we simply added 語 go to 日本 nihon

To say a Japanese person, take nihon and add 人 jin

日本人 nihonjin

Adding go and jin is very handy as it works with any country or language. Let's practice.

The word for China is

中国 chuugoku

Can you guess how to say a Chinese person? Hint add jin

中国人 chuugokujin

And how do you say the chinese language? Hint add go

中国語 chuugokugo

See how easy this is? Let's try Korea. Korea in Japanese is

韓国 Kankoku

How do you say a Korean person?

韓国人 kankokujin

And the Korean language?

韓国語 kankokugo

One more. The word for France is

フランス furansu

How would you say the French language?

フランス語 furansugo

and the French people?

フランス人 furansujin

As a rule just remember to add 'go' for the language and 'jin' for the people. This doesn't always work since not every country is named after its language. We will look at this in the next podcast.