Vocabulary & Reading: Motherland, Countries & People

When we talk about other places and people, we use the names of countries, their capital cities and the words for the people who live there. The word for the people or the language is called a nationality, and we often build it from the country's name by adding an ending. For example, someone from France is French, someone from Italy is Italian, and someone from Spain is Spanish. Some nationalities are irregular, so we learn them as whole words: a person from England is English and a person from Azerbaijan is Azerbaijani. Travel words such as 'passport', 'tourist', 'capital', 'flag' and 'tradition' help us describe trips and the customs of a country. A tradition is a special way of doing something that families or countries have followed for a long time, such as a festival, a dance or a holiday meal. In a short reading text we look for the exact detail that answers the question, for example a name, a place or a number. The capital of Azerbaijan is Baku, the capital of France is Paris, and the capital of Italy is Rome.