I was talking to a friend from Spain and some of his friends. Friend in question speaks English AND Spanish – his friends do not. Speaking my best Spanish I can, when I talked about the country I said “America” (Americo) as opposed to “United States” (Estados Unidos). Friend corrected me and said that people from other countries don’t say “America”.
However, this hasn’t been an issue at any other point.
So I’m just curious if this is a common thing, or what you say personally.
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America and American.
BTW: Is USAan a thing? or some other alternative to tell that someone is from the USA? :p
Your friend is wrong, people in most countries use America as frequently as or more than United States. Afaik it’s specifically Spanish speakers who strictly use America to refer to the continents of North and South America collectivelly, which they view as a single continent, and “United States” to the country.
We say United States, America is the continent.
But we call the inhabitants of the united states Americans or North Americans.
I mostly hear “the USA”, or just “the United States / the States”, but we call the people just “Americans”, only “US-Americans” when the specification is really needed
Its also kinda funny that we actually say USA without translation, even though since in German its “Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika” it should be VSvA.
For the state it’s either *Stany* (*the States*), *USA* (we indeed use the English abbreviation), or *Ameryka*. I feel like the first one is preferred, the last one being more vague in meaning. In official, diplomatic terms it’s always *Stany Zjednoczone* (*United States*).
As for the citizens, it’s always *Amerykanin* (*American*). I was pretty surprised to learn about the Spanish *estadounidense* – in Polish it would literally be *stanozjednoczeniowiec*, which sounds ridiculous.
I tend to say either America (Ameryka) or States (Stany), I think I use the latter more often.
For people, it’s always “Americans” (Amerykanie) since there’s simply no other alternative.
In Spanish:
America = Continent
EE.UU. (Short for “Estados Unidos”) = Country
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American = Inhabitant from the American continent (this includes Canadians, Mexicans, Nicarauans, Argentinians, Cubans, and a long etc…) and is the equivalent of Asian, European Oceanian, African. (that’s why using “American” as nationality sounds so wrong, “USians” looks like they think they are the only inhabitants of the whole continent, ignoring other peoples, including natives)
Estadounidense = Nationality for people from the USA
I make a conscious effort to say “the US” instead of “America” in English, because I think that’s reasonable and I get why it annoys the Latinos. I still use “American” as an adjective though just because “Usian” sounds off.
This is just in English though, each language has its own rules when it comes to these things. In Polish we use “Ameryka” and “Stany” (meaning “States”) interchangeably in everyday language.
I think we use it pretty much like in English: United States, US and America (Verenigde Staten, VS, Amerika) all regularly get used. If I have to put a distinction on it I’d say that when referring to the country as an abstract/the government VS is most common: the US did this, the US attended that. Whereas when you’re talking about the location they get used interchangeably where VS is a little more formal than Amerika. In America they do this, in the US that happened.
Most of the time by far, we simply say USA – although of course with the Swedish pronunciation of those letters. At times, we use Amerika as well. “United States” in Swedish would be “Förenta Staterna” – and “United States of America” would be “Amerikas Förenta Stater”. Those names are barely ever used in everyday speech though.
Your friend is right, except when it comes to its citizens most outsider will call them “americans”.
I’ve never heard anyone from France call the US “l’amérique”
In Spanish it’s a thing for obvious reasons, but in most other languages I’ve seen it’s not. Sorry, rest of the continent.
For the country we use both. For Americans we have words corresponding american and unitedstatesian, but american is used more. Amerikkalainen rolls off the tongue better than yhdysvaltalainen.
“United States” (États-Unis), most of the time. Shortened as “Les US” too sometimes. I’ve never ever used “America” to refer to the USA and I don’t hear people do it either.
“America” denotes a whole continent. Using this noun in reference to the US reinforces the socio-political, economic, and cultural hegemony of the US over other countries.
Where I come from there’s a tendency to say “America” rather than US from older people grown up during the years where there still was a strong fascination with the US. Uneducated people have a higher proclivity to do that too. However, kids are generally taught in middle school that it’s best to refer to the US as such and nothing more, also to avoid disrespecting all the other countries in the continent.
I usually say “the United States” but then I call their inhabitants “Americans”, which is quite a bit of nonsense. I wish there were a commonly used adjective for US-Americans. Staters? Not really Unionists these days and certainly not Statists…
In italian, we say “Stati Uniti” (United States)for the country and “statunitensi” for the people of the country (although there are a couple of people who just say “Americans”).
Personally, I say “people from the USA” when I’m talking to an English native speaker and referring to someone from the USA. I wish there were an adjective in English for Americans in the USA, because Americans are all those people who live in the American continents to me, from Canada, Greenland and the USA to Chile and Argentina.
Funny fact, I remember when these two guys from the USA I met online got mad at me for saying “Mexicans, Brazilians and Cubans are American too, since their countries are in America”. They kept telling me that I was ignorant because Mexico, Brazil and Cuba aren’t in the US lol
América is a Continent
Americans are people from said continent
Estadunidenses are people form USA, of called United States.
Usually US because America encompasses a lot more than the US of A.
In Swedish we almost always say “USA”.
Unlike how it’s done in English we always include the A, and it’s never in definite form.
You could also say “Amerika”, but it isn’t as common and could lead to confusion since it’s also sometimes used to collectively refer to the two continents.
We do however call the inhabitants “Amerikaner”.
As others have said for us America = Continent. One. The US is “Estados Unidos” but we use “Estadunidenses” or “Americanos” sometimes to describe people from the US
This is just a language thing. In languages like spanish, america is a continent, so calling USA america makes little sense. In other languages, like english, but also my native language of Danish, there are two continents, north and south america, which together is the americas. So saying america does not get confused with the americas, so no issue.
I ever say the united states when speaking Danish, it just seems wierd to refer to the type of government rather than the country. We never the united kind either, just great britain. I ofte hear people say USA tho.
America denotes the country and the continent. If you say “I’m going to ‘America’, everyone knows you mean The United States”.
Why are some people offended by America calling itself America? If you recall the 13 original colonies of North America titled their self-proclaimed nation “The United States of America”. As the first series of colonies to succeed in declaring independence, the name America just stuck to the US.