A student of mine recently said "I thought I was speaking to a native Chinese."
I would always say "I thought I was speaking to a native Chinese speaker" or "I thought I was speaking to someone from China."
My first instinct was that his sentence sounded strange and unnatural, but then I started having doubts. Are either of the phrases "a native Chinese" or "a native Chinese person" commonly used by native speakers?
Best Answer
The word "Chinese" is mostly used as an adjective, or as a noun to denote the language. (We might also use "the Chinese" to mean "Chinese people in general", but I think this is a special use of the adjective: we can do the same with "English".) "Chinese" can also be used to mean a takeaway meal from a Chinese restaurant.
However, it can also be a noun meaning a Chinese person. E.g. in Merriam-Webster:
In my experience, this usage is uncommon, but it's nevertheless correct English. So yes, you could say "a native Chinese"