In this topic we look at Nationalities and Countries in Spanish.

We will learn all about discussing where you are from in Spanish. We will see how to ask someone where they are from, how to state where you are from and your nationality and some useful vocabulary related to nationalities and countries in Spanish.

This topic continues on from what we learned in the previous topic: Greetings and Goodbyes in Spanish. 

Here is a video to help you with your pronunciation:

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Firstly, let’s look at how to ask someone where you are from in Spanish:

¿De dónde eres?: Where are you from? (informal)
¿De dónde es usted? Where are you from? (formal)

¿Cual es tu nacionalidad?: What is your nationality?

To respond to this question you can use a word that we saw in the previous lesson:

Soy…: I am…

This would be used to describe your nationality, for example:

(You will see that some nationalities have two options. The first option is for a man and the second option is for a woman)

Soy ingles/inglesa: I am English
Soy escocés/escocesa: I am Scottish
Soy galés/galesa: I am Welsh
Soy irlandés/irlandesa: I am Irish
Soy español/española: I am Spanish
Soy japonés/japonesa: I am Japanese
Soy estadounidense: I am US American
Soy australiano/australiana: I am Australian
Soy chino/china: I am Chinese
Soy indio/india: I am Indian

Rather than stating your nationality you may want to discuss countries in Spanish and say from which country you are from. To do this you can use:

Soy de…: I am from…

Here are some examples:

Soy de Inglaterra: I am from England
Soy de Escocia: I am from Scotland
Soy de País de Gales: I am from Wales
Soy de Irlanda: I am from Ireland
Soy de España: I am from Spain
Soy de Japón: I am from Japan
Soy de Los Estados Unidos: I am from the US
Soy de Australia: I am from Australia
Soy de China: I am from China
Soy de India: I am from India

You will notice that we use capital letters for countries in Spanish, but we don’t use capital letters for nationalities in Spanish.

If you wanted to find out more detail about countries in Spanish and where exactly someone is from you can ask:

¿De qué parte (de Inglaterra)?: From what part (of England)?

And they might answer:

Soy de Manchester: I am from Manchester

What about negative statements in Spanish?

It’s extremely easy! Whenever you want to make a sentence negative, you simply add “No” before the verb.

Let’s see some examples of negative sentences:

No soy de Manchester: I am not from Manchester
No soy de Inglaterra: I am not from England

Activity for Nationalities and Countries in Spanish:

Complete the gaps in this formal interview and afterwards write the same interview in an informal way…

-Buenas tardes. Cómo ….. ………..?
-Me ………. Ana.
-De dónde ……….. usted?
-……. Inglesa.

Here are the answers to the last activity about Greetings and Goodbyes in Spanish:

-Hola, buenas tardes. ¿Cómo te llamas?
-Me llamo Lola, ¿y tú?
-Me llamo Antonio ¿Cómo estás?
-Muy bien, gracias. ¿y tú?
-Bien ¡hasta luego!
-¡Adiós!