Re:Ask HN: Why can't I call myself “a Japanese”?
by legerdemain on Thursday October 07, 2021 @08:01PM
(#28793768)
Does that mean that I need to introduce myself by saying "I am a Japanese person"? Should I request my colleagues to say "I am an American person" when introducing themselves?
Re:Ask HN: Why can't I call myself “a Japanese”?
by schoen on Thursday October 07, 2021 @08:19PM
(#28793961)
Usually native speakers would prefer the adjective rather the noun in these cases ("I am Japanese", "I am American"), or the prepositional phrases ("I am from Japan", "I am from the U.S.").
Where we don't have a subject pronoun to which the adjective can be attributed, we would usually supply "person" or another noun referring to a kind of person ("A Japanese person told me...", "Any Chinese person would readily recognize the meaning of hundreds of kanji based on the influence of hanzi", "My friend married a Japanese woman", "My mother goes to a Chinese acupuncturist").
When referring to someone other than the writer/speaker, some see them as problematic because they can be othering/dehumanizing, or they can suggest a (potentially incorrect and offensive to the subject) priority of the particular axis of identity.