It's as simple as:

- In standard English, "Japanese", "Chinese", etc. are now used only as adjectives and not nouns (although the noun usage used to be acceptable). So you can't correctly say "a Japanese came in" any more than you can say "a Swedish came in." http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/29887-grammar...

- "The Japanese" remains valid as a way to refer to the people of that nation collectively.

- "-(i)an" endings are both nouns and adjectives, so Canadians, Germans, and Ankh-Morporkians are all fine.

- "-man/woman" endings are no longer applied except where they've become idiomatic, so we have Welshman and Frenchman, but not Chineseman or Japaneseman. ("Chinaman" is, of course, derogatory.)

- For an exhaustive rundown of the topic, see "Demonym" on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym

- In more academic or historical writing, you might still find "-ese" in use as a noun ending, but it sounds faintly racist and outdated: "More than a hundred Chinese up to that date had been interrogated by police." http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=Yqemz6q_nQYC&lpg=PA74&ot... (The same might apply to "-ish" words, but I'm not certain.)

-

(To throw_away) Like you, I've done my fair share of correcting Chinese speakers about this usage, too. But I've seen regular use of "a Chinese" in various older English writing, so the usage is at least historically justified, and probably slipped into older instructional texts. It doesn't surprise me that some of the textbooks used in China may not have kept up with changes in usage over the last few decades - in the first place, English teaching there was almost zilch in the past and remains very spotty today.

vvvvvv

The only people I've ever encountered using the "a (Japan|Chin)ese" construction were (Japan|Chin)ese people themselves. Which may have rubbed off on GGP from GGP's Asian spouse. I've wondered if there was some correlation in Asian languages, but the English translation of the Japanese version of that wiki page makes it seem as if the concept of demonym is foreign to Japanese readers: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&pr... (and there's no Chinese version, as far as I can tell).

It's also a way older people or rural/Southern people would refer to African-Americans: "She dates a black"

Most people would think that's an odd or deragotory way of saying that.

They're probably doing a s/negro/black in their head.

One of the best internet comments I've ever read! Or maybe I just love etymology...

I think it sounds weird to some people because they're used to "Japanese" being a adjective rather than a demonym. When used in an unexpected way, any word sounds weird.

I'm married to a Britisher (which is not used in Great Britan anyway) sounds similarly awkward. Married to an Englishman/Welshman/Irishman works, but is gender (and England/Wales/Ireland) specific.

I'm married to a Scott works though.

Not sure there is a general purpose word you can use to say "I'm married to someone from Britian".

To a Scot, unless your husband's name is Scott, in which case I apologise for making assumptions.

"I'm married to a Briton". That sounds weird.

(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...)

Briton is widely used in Britain, e.g. in news articles: "Tokyo destroyed by giant reptile, 3 Britons feared dead"

Great parody about the media coverage of 3-11 there.

Disagree.

"I"m married to a Brit"

Too bad you can't do the same trick with Japanese; it's become politically incorrect (even racist) to use the word "Jap".

What's amusing is that in Japan many Japanese are totally unaware of the political incorrectness of it. In Japan I sometimes hear people use 'Jap' as slang, in store or product names, or just in normal language by extension of how other countries are abbreviated in english. In a country that is mostly japanese, it just loses its racist power.

Is there a proper word to describe this? For example:

* "Jim is British" - "British" is the demonym

* "Jim is a Brit" - "Brit" is the ____

I'm not sure what the correct google search term would be to find out this.

My $partner is Japanese/British/American ...

"My wife is from Britain", "My husband is British" ? Maybe these are now archaic

"From" no longer implies ethnicity and may even not imply culture.

Because it should be 'married to a jap' but for annoying and outdated historical reasons, people will think you are racist if you say that.

It's hard to disassociate the word "Jap" from World War II racist propaganda.

http://img.moonbuggy.org/superman-says-you-can-slap-a-jap/

That's not racism, that's politics. Would you say British anti German morale posters are racist?

Did British anti-German propaganda posters have racist caricatures of German people?

There were caricatures, but asking whether they were racist is rather begging the question.

Credit for using "begging the question" properly, but let me clarify. Propaganda against the Germans was either aimed squarely at Hitler himself or at more abstract representations that didn't emphasize the frankly non-existent physical differences between Germans and Americans. Germans were portrayed with swastikas and Prussian helmets and jackboots; Japanese were portrayed with buck teeth, yellow skin, glasses and slanted eyes.

well it doesn't to me - but maybe that's because I'm not American? Why does it sound weird to you?

Does to me; I guess I think of it as either an adjective or referring to the language. While this usage is technically correct, I think I'd always say "Japanese person". I don't really have a good explanation though of why it's different to "American" or "Canadian" in that regard. Maybe just it's less common for some reason.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the form "I'm married to a Japanese" (this usage comes up a lot for me, although I'm generally referring to Chinese rather than Japanese). But if I were to avoid it, I definitely wouldn't say "I'm married to a Japanese person". I'd say "My wife is Japanese".

I think the referring to "a Japanese" vs "a Japanese man/woman" sounds a little racist, it shouldn't, it makes syntactical sense, but I guess its the cultural influence on the language, I don't know why I brought it up, I was just really taken back when you said "I'm married to a Japanese"

Thanks for the heads up and see my response to tux1968.

It really does sound strange to me as well, almost derogatory in tone. It sounds so much better to my ear to say "i'm married to a Japanese person" or "... person from Japan". But I have no good reason as to why the same doesn't hold for Canadian/American.

Thanks, I think I'll have to keep that in mind when talking in English. The thing is, I thought about writing 'Japanese woman', but her gender seemed besides the point to me, so I didn't want to mention it. In my native tongue (German) there is no unisex term for nationalities, you're either a "Japanerin" (= Japanese woman) or a "Japaner" (= Japanese man). Because of that there might be less subtext when talking about nationalities, but I think this is all just due to the history of your cultural relations - for example in Switzerland there is some negative subtext to the word 'Yugoslave', because their immigrant group was rather unpopular at one point.

I think its the soft sound at the end, but I'm not exactly sure why.

I think you might be right.

An/a American/Mexican/Thai/German sounds ok.

A Japanese/Chinese/Dutch sounds wrong.

'Dutchman' seems to be unisex in the English tongue.