5

Country, nationality and language Exercises

A Who speaks what where? 5.1 Answer the questions.

country nationality language 1 What nationality are people from Poland? Polish
2 What nationality are people from Thailand?
Australia Australian English 3 What language is spoken in Spain?
Brazil Brazilian Portuguese 4 Where do people speak Hebrew?
China Chinese Mandarin (and Cantonese) 5 Where do people speak Mandarin?
Egypt Egyptian Arabic 6 What language is spoken in Brazil?
7 What language is spoken in Egypt?
France French French
8 What nationality are people from Germany?
Germany German German 9 Write down three countries whose first language is English.
Greece Greek Greek 10 Write down three languages spoken in Switzerland.
Israel Israeli Hebrew
5.2 What parts of the world are these countries in? Write the continent, e.g. Europe, or the
Italy Italian Italian area, e.g. the Far East.
Japan Japanese Japanese
1 Germany Europe 4 Italy
(South) Korea Korean Korean 2 Japan 5 Jamaica
Poland Polish Polish 3 Saudi Arabia 6 Argentina
Russia Russian Russian 5.3 Underline the main stress in the words in the box, and practise saying them. Use the
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabian Arabic pronunciation in the index to help you.
Spain Spanish Spanish
Brazilian Japan Egyptian Arabic Scandinavia
Switzerland Swiss Swiss-German, French, Italian
Chinese Portuguese Australia Saudi Arabia
Thailand Thai Thai
Turkey Turkish Turkish 5.4 Write the answers.
the UK (United Kingdom)* British English
1 Bangkok is the capital of Thailand . 4 Moscow is the capital of .
the USA (United States of America) American English .2 Ankara is the capital of . 5 Buenos Aires is the capital of .
*the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) 3 Seoul is the capital of . 6 Athens is the capital of .
I come from Argentina, so I’m Argentinian and my first language is Spanish. The capital is 5.5 Complete the sentences with the name of the people from the country on the right.
Buenos Aires, which has a population of more than 10 million people. 1 I’ve worked a lot with the French . FRANCE
2 I know lots of . GERMANY
Common mistakes 3 We do a lot of business with . JAPAN
4 I used to know a lot of . ISRAEL
He’s English. (NOT He’s english.); We ate French food. (NOT We ate France food.)
5 I have always found very friendly. BRAZIL
I went to the USA. (NOT I went to USA.) I also visited the UK. (NOT I also visited UK.) 6 People often say that are very reserved. BRITAIN
7 are very organised. SWITZERLAND
8 I met a lot of on my trip to Moscow. RUSSIA
B Parts of the world
The continents in the world are Europe, Africa, Asia, North America, South America, 5.6 Over to you
Australia [Australia and New Zealand] and Antarctica.
We also use these terms for different parts of the world: Answer the questions for you, then ask a friend – if possible, someone from a different
the Middle East (e.g. United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia), the Far East (e.g. Thailand, Japan), the country – and write their answers.
Caribbean (e.g. Jamaica, Barbados), Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland). 1 What’s your nationality?
2 What’s the capital city and population of your country?
C The people 3 What’s your first language?
When we are talking about people from a particular country, we add ‘s’ to nationalities ending 4 What other languages do you speak?
in ‘-i’ or ‘-(i)an’, but we need the definite article (the) for most others. 5 Which countries have you visited?
Brazilians/Russians are … The British / The French are … 6 Which countries would you like to visit?
Thais/Israelis The Swiss / The Japanese
With both groups we can also use the word ‘people’, e.g. Brazilian people, British people, etc.

16 English Vocabulary in Use Pre-intermediate and intermediate English Vocabulary in Use Pre-intermediate and intermediate 17