What's the right way to say "I am from Colombia" in french?

Some people say it is "Je suis de Colombie" while others say "Je suis de la Colombie", which one is it? Thanks for any help.

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Permalink Reply by Erwan on February 15, 2012 at 11:00am

Je suis de Colombie is right but I think, even if it's more formal, you'd rather say Je suis originaire de Colombie or Je viens de Colombie.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on February 15, 2012 at 2:47pm

In general with feminine countries, you just use de (rather than "de la") if you're talking about the country as in the actual geographical region. So: de France, de Colombie, d'Angleterre etc. With a masculine country, on the hand, you would say du Canada, du Congo etc.

On the other hand, if you're talking about the country referring to the people, you would generally use de la.

So for example:

J'ai reçu una carte de Colombie.

L'ONU n'a pas reçu de réponse de la Colombie sur les mesures proposées.

Here, by "from Colombia" we man "from that geographical place" in the first case, but in the second what is actually meant is "from the Colombian people". So in this latter case, speakers would tend to use de la rather than just de.