• “A foreigner asked me for directions.”
• “I want to make more foreign friends.”
• “There are some foreigners in my company.”

You’ve probably noticed that our students commonly use the word “foreigner.” In fact, this is one of the first things I noticed when I started teaching English to people from East Asian countries. 

Growing up in the US, I had hardly ever heard Americans use this word in everyday life. So when I noticed students using it, I found it unnatural in the “We just wouldn’t say that” kind of way.

So why is this word so popular among our students from East Asian countries? And what alternatives might we suggest as a replacement?

What Our Students Mean By “Foreigner”

First of all, it’s helpful to understand what our students mean when they say the word “foreigner.” While the word technically means “any person from a foreign country,” in everyday speech, it refers to people who “look foreign.” 

People from neighboring countries aren’t usually categorized as “foreigners.” Instead, they’re referred to by their (assumed) nationality. For example, in Taiwan, people often confuse Koreans for Japanese people, but they’ll never call either of them “foreigners.” 

On the other hand, people who look like they’re from some other part of the world are likely to be called “foreigners.” This might seem strange to us, but keep in mind that many of our students didn’t start interacting with people who didn’t “look like them” until they signed up for Engoo! 

So it’s somewhat understandable why they divide the world population into “people who look like us” and “foreigners.” To them, it’s just a category, and like any other category, it can be:

• positive (“I like making foreign friends.”)
• negative (“I’m scared of talking to foreigners.”)
• neutral (e.g. a sign that says “Welcome foreigner! We speak English.”)

How Native Speakers Perceive the Word “Foreigner”

Now let’s look at how the word “foreigner” is received by native speakers from around the world.

“If I moved to another country I think I would want to be accepted, not referred to as a foreigner.”

– an American member of an internet forum

”The word ‘foreigners’ ... in Canada is used almost exclusively in a negative way … it's a "them" and "us" point of view.”

– a Canadian member of an internet forum

“‘Foreigner' ... seems to be a word with very negative connotations …. the use of the word foreigner to me excludes the person from the community.”

– a British resident of Denmark

“In Australia at least, it [“foreigner”] has never been a particularly polite or refined way of referring to someone of a different nationality ... and is almost never heard with reference to someone who has actually moved here to live, work, or study.”

– an Australian educator

As you can see, the general consensus is that the term “foreigner” has unpleasant connotations. It might not be rude or offensive but it can definitely sound unfriendly and strange. And that’s one reason it’s not used a lot in core English-speaking countries.

In general, many places outside of East Asia also tend to be more ethnically diverse, so there’s not a huge point in classifying people who look different as “foreigners.” After all, how do you know they aren’t from your country?

What Can We Teach Students to Say Instead?

So what alternatives might we want to teach our students? For starters, instead of the sentences at the top of this blog post, most native speakers would say something along these lines:

• A tourist asked me for directions today.
• I want to make friends from different countries.
• There are many international students in my school.

Notice that in the first sentence, the fact that the tourist is foreign isn’t important and is simply left out. After all, both foreign and domestic tourists would need to ask for directions!

Just keep in mind that unlike the noun “foreigner,” the adjective “foreign” is a neutral description. That’s why phrases like “foreign tourists,” “foreign workers,” or “foreign-born spouses” will appear in news articles without any negative connotations.

👋 That’s it for now!

We hope this has helped you understand why students use the word “foreigner” all the time and what alternatives we might suggest.

Learners often find it interesting that the English word “foreigner” has different connotations from the word in their native language. For some, it even becomes a game or an exercise in paraphrasing.

And who knows? You might even change the way your student sees the world.

Happy tutoring!