Does the term “foreigner” have a negative connotation for you?

26 comments

1. It depends on the tone of voice being used, but I agree that it can have a negative connotation. I personally avoid using it.

2. My first reaction was to say no, but I’d be lying if I said the word isn’t used disparagingly.

3. I mean, who doesn’t love Cold As Ice?

4. I feel like it would depend on the tone. If it is a normal tone, then its all kosher, but if it is said in a weird way then yeah it could be negative.

   Its kinda like how some (usually older) white Americans might say “black people” in a weird tone that implies negative connotations, despite the phrase by itself being totally benign.

5. Depends on tone/context.

   “Why are so many foreigners coming here?” Negative

   “John is foreign.” Neutral

6. It really depends the context.

   My mom might have described some tourists/temp visitors as foreigners. “They couldn’t get a bank account because they were foreigners”

   “There was so much traffic because of the foreigner tourists.”

   It can just be informational.

   But I can’t think of a lot of sentences in which it wouldn’t start marching over to xenophobic.

7. I think for most of the people who use it, it does. I avoid it, but I also think some people just don’t notice and mean no ill intent. 

8. I mean, they’ve had a few good songs, so not sure why there’d be a negative connotation?

   But for real, no. Not really. Foreigner is an accurate term for someone who’s not American. Looking at your examples tho, people don’t usually use foreigner as a descriptive in casual or direct conversation. It would be super weird to introduce someone, like in your example, as “frank. He’s a foreigner.”

9. I mostly use there country like say

   “lots of germans”

   i could also use it for German-Americans but really it depends on context

10. Depends on the context and inflection.

11. I grew up in a family with a lot of people from outside the US, so not at all.

12. Context matters.
    But generally if I use it, I mean it neutrally, as in, not from here.

13. It depends on the context and tone in which it is said, but that can apply to lots of words. If you put a hard emphasis on the word, it can sound bad, or you can make anything sound negative or derogatory if you put a swear word in front of it.

14. There are two kinds of people, Americans, and Potential Americans. There are no foriegners.

15. If there were a spectrum, it would lean on the negative side rather than neutral or positive. But it also depends entirely on the context in which it’s being used.

16. I *am* a foreigner.

17. I’m more of a Journey fan, tbh.

18. Depends on the context and tone of voice being used.

    “These foreign bitches” is very rude

    “April is a foreigner” is neutral

19. It raises an eyebrow only because it’s not the common way to refer to someone from another country.

20. Depends on how they say it because I would be a foreigner but some people say it in a negative (get out my country) way

21. Who doesn’t want to be a Juke Box Hero?

22. I never say “foreigner,” but I do say someone is foreign if I can’t be more specific because I’m not sure where they’re from. Not in a negative way.

23. Not for me. 

24. Not really but depends on how you say it

25. It’s inherently neutral, but I think people who use it tend to land somewhere between people I disagree with politically and people whose politics I think are abhorrent.

26. I think foreigner is a perfectly acceptable in general, but, as always, context is everything.

    I use foreigner fairly frequently, but in a perfectly factual way. “In the United States, we do X a certain way, but most foreigners are unfamiliar with it.” ==> using the dictionary meaning of the word to factually distinguish between US citizens and people from other countries.

    Of course, depending on one’s particular statement and tone of voice, foreigner can also be used pejoratively to indicate that one holds negative views of other people or considers them to be inferior, etc.