Global View - Nationalities (C0263)

Huazhe Lei大约 1 分钟

Global View - Nationalities (C0263)

Hey! How was your first day of class? I'm in level two and I'm loving my class this semester! It's great being in a class of international students!

Mine was ok, except that no one in my class speaks English. I guess it will force me to converse in Chinese more in class so at least I should improve a lot this semester.

That's both fortunate and unfortunate. It's the United Nations in my class! We have people from all over the world! There are three Germans, a Pole, a Scottish, two French, an American, a Brazilian, a Chilean, a New Zealander, though he prefers to call himself a Kiwi. Who else do we have? Oh, we also have a Moroccan, a Togolese, a Pakistani, and two Indonesians!

That's quite the array of nationalities. Everyone in my class is from Asia, except me. There are a few South Koreans, several Japanese, Malaysian, Thai, Singaporean, Filipino, Kazakhstani, and one Russian.

Well, I think you're pretty lucky actually. You'll have the opportunity to learn so much about Asian culture.

I guess so, but I think it's going to be hard to relate to my classmates, especially with the language barrier. I think I might change classes.

Don't! Stay the course! Your spoken Chinese will be eternally grateful. I bet you it will even surpass mine with all that practice.

I highly doubt it. Your girlfriend is Chinese.

Well, there is that, yes.

Key Vocabulary

United Nations

an international political organization

array

a large group or quantity of people or things

opportunity

chance

language barrier

trouble communicating because speak different languages

stay the course

remain or persevere to the end

Supplementary Vocabulary

Dutch

relating to the people of Netherlands

Finn

A person from Finland

Dane

A person from Denmark

naturalize

process by which a person becomes a citizen of another country

ethnic

relating to groups of people that have common racial, tribal or religious traits