Could anyone please tell the difference between authenic and genuine? If I refer to cuisine which has exactly same taste as the homegrown one , which word fits for the following context? For examples, I tasted a French dish made my Chinese friend. That's a genuine/authetic French, because she lived France and studied French cuisine for many years. I am a genuine/authentic Chinese. I think genuine is better. The base of geniune is gen, while that of authentic is "authen" which refers to author. Thus, authentic usually is usually applied to something in paper, book, etc, is not counterfeit. And genuine is applied to a horse, a person, etc. Is it an educated guess? Thanks!
These two are more or less synonyms however in colloquial English we have come to use them slightly more specifically. Authentic is used for something that is not false or counterfeit as you stated but is is also used to describe something that is true to its form or time period. In the case of food it would be authentic because the cooking is true to the French way of cooking. The word genuine refers to something that possesses the qualities of the subject or conveys an honesty of feeling or experience. Although grammatically correct in either case you will hear someone use the word "authentic" more often with reference to cuisine. Take even your root of word analysis... when someone follows the form of something, in this case cuisine, it is something that can be delineated in the form of text, something that can be quantified in all of its elements.
Thank you, Chasney. Then, I should use "authentic" in the sentence instead of genuine. I am an authentic Chinese. Right?
You could say that, you would probably add person/individual/man/woman/boy/girl/child/adult etc. but to be honest I think the word is a little dehumanizing so is genuine unless you are conveying your feelings I would say in that case "I am of Chinese descent" or even "I am Chinese" stands alone well. More often in America we use the idiomatic "I am 100% Chinese" or if you were born in the country you are describing you can say "I am from China." Again you could say that grammatically I suppose but I think it makes it a little cold or impersonal you are a person and although you are true to the form of your ethnicity you can't be outlined on a piece of paper and no one else is like you essentially that sentence says to me that is the only way you identify yourself. Hope that helps
