Articles (Languages, Countries & Nationalities)

Nationalities

We DO use the definite article the when referring to people from a particular country as a whole: the Spanish, the British, the French, the Irish, the Dutch, the Finnish, the Swiss, the Vietnamese

• The British are very good at queueing.
• The Irish like to dance.

We generally DO NOT use ‘the’ with nationalities ending in ‘s: Americans, Canadians, Russians, Australians, Danes, South Africans, Jamaicans, Mexicans

• Americans speak English differently to the British.
• South Africans are very tall, similar to the Dutch.

NOTE: The Americans were drinking Coke.(that particular group of Americans)

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So GENERALLY we can say:

Ø	people’s names
Ø	people’s names with titles
THE	title with no names
THE	people in the plural (families and nationalities, except where the nationality ends in an ‘s’)