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Hi, Dr. Jill, I heard you got a package today.
嗨，吉尔博士，我听说你今天收到了一个包裹。
Yes, I got this wall hanging of Chinese poetry.
是的，我收到了这个写有中国诗歌的壁挂。
I'm going to hang it over my desk.
我要把它挂在我的桌子上方。
Say, did you ever wonder why we say "Chinese" and not "Chinan" or "Chinian?"
你有没有想过为什么我们说“Chinese”而不是“Chinan”或“Chinian”？
You know, I have! And I found out it's because the Portuguese met them before the Italians or the Germans did.
我有想过！我发现这是因为葡萄牙人在意大利人或德国人之前先遇到了他们。
Huh? I get the feeling we're heading for one of your talks on the history of the English language...
啊？我感觉我们要听你讲英语语言史了……
Just a short one. I've been looking into why we have so many ways to make an adjective from a country name.
就一小段。我一直在研究为什么我们有这么多把国家名称变成形容词的方法。
I read that we didn't have the word "Chinese" until around 1570.
我读到，直到1570年左右，我们才有了“Chinese”这个词。
The ending is like French -ois--and you know Portuguese is similar to French.
词尾很像法语的-ois——你知道葡萄牙语和法语很相似。
Chinois, right. So we also have Japanese, Senegalese and other adjectives with -ese.
Chinois，没错。所以我们也有Japanese、Senegalese和其他以-ese结尾的形容词。
Where did our word "French" come from, then?
那么，我们的“French”一词从何而来呢？
Glad you asked. You know how we can say "British," "Irish" and "Scottish?"
很高兴你这么问。你知道我们怎么说“British”、“Irish”和“Scottish”吗？
That's the -ish ending we get from German.
这就是我们从德语中获得的词尾-ish。
The British shortened it to -ch for adjectives that refer to their neighboring countries, the Dutch, French and Welch.
英国人将其缩写为-ch，用于他们的邻国荷兰（Dutch）、法国（French）和威尔士（Welch）的形容词形式的词尾。
Hey, I'm starting to see how this works. Let me guess another one.
嘿，我开始明白这是怎么回事了。让我猜猜另一个。
You have the right background for this one.
你正好有这一个的相关背景。
How about Israeli? Or Saudi?
Israeli怎么样？还是Saudi？
I know, the -i comes from Arabic! Other adjectives in Arabic have that sound at the end.
我知道，词缀-i来自阿拉伯语！阿拉伯语中的其他形容词在结尾都有这个音。
Bingo! One more--how about Russian, Egyptian, and Norwegian?
对啦！再来一个——Russian，Egyptian和Norwegian怎么样？
Those have the -ian ending from Latin--and French.
这些词的结尾是-ian，来自拉丁语和法语。
You got it. Now you know why we have so many ways to make adjectives from country names.
你说对了。现在你知道为什么我们有这么多把国家名称变成形容词的方法了。
And that's Everyday Grammar.
以上就是今天的《每日语法》。
