English Translation
Are you Japanese?
The transcript says 日本【にっぽん】の方【かた】ですか？, but 【にほん】(Nihon) as the TTS audio pronounces is the correct one in this particular context.
Don’t try to replace 日本の方 with 日本の人（ひと）. The altered phrase sounds rude.
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Funny you mention that because I had just thought how they would be interchangeable. Saved me some future 平手打ち there…
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English Translation
Are you Japanese?
Sorry, I don’t really get it, whether “方” is more moderate than “人”?
Because there are multiple sentences such as “いい人です”, which doesn’t seem negative? Are they used in different situations depending on the sentence, or do they sound stronger or weaker on their own?
What about “日本人”【にほんじん】? Would that work and be acceptable?
@Hoytesler
Good question!
日本の方ですか？ is a question to a stranger. As English speakers usually avoid directly asking “how old are you?” to a stranger, especially to a woman, we don’t ask someone’s nationality or ethnicity directly. Using 〜の方 is a polite way of asking such a sensitive fact in Japanese. Alternatively, you can also say ご出身は日本ですか？ by adding ご.
日本の人ですか？ has two problems. First, の人 is too direct and impolite. It even implies that your Japanese skills are too low that I’m ashamed of you as the same citizen. It sounds like mocking the listener. That’s why I said “rude”. Another problem is that 日本の人 sounds grammatically unnatural. Grammatically speaking, it should be 日本人ですか? by dropping particle の. But again, 日本人ですか？ is a too direct question unless the speaker is an officer of Customs at an international airport or a police officer interrogating a suspicious person. Please note that you can say 私は日本人です when you explain yourself. But it doesn’t work when asking someone’s nationality/ethnicity.
いい人ですね, on the other hand, doesn’t have such a negative connotation for the following two reasons. First, the speaker describe the listener’s personality in a good way. It’s not a socially sensitive question that could possibly be interpreted as a racial discrimination. Second, いい人ですね isn’t a question to a stranger but most likely to be a comment on an acquaintance or a dialogue between acquaintances talking about a third person’s nice personality.
Let me know if you have any related questions.
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Thank you soooo much for your delicate elaboration. I really appreciate it!
Yes, I also noticed another sentence “FBIの方” and now realise that it was written in a similar manner. “方” vaguely points out a category, whereas “人” clearly indicates you’re of this kind of person, if that makes sense.
But, to be honest, it’s so shocking to know how long I’ve been offending people in Japanese because nearly every textbook is teaching us “日本人 / 韓国人 / 中国人ですか？” in its introductory chapter. My Japanese is indeed poor at this point and is improved by you a bit. 
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