@Gelderland
Sorry, but yeah, I think it is you being a bit weird :P. When people say "America," 99.9% of the time, they mean the USA. For the continents, it's almost always specified North or South, or at the very least, pluralized into "the Americas."
Actually, no, calling things differently is not exclusively an English thing. Every language I have studied translates the names of countries/nationalities. For example, German in English, Deutsch in German, tysk in Norwegian, nyemetsky in Russian (transliteration is tough), etc. I can't remember the French or Spanish words, but they're different, too, I know they add at least one more beginning letter. The words aren't even close to each other. I agree that it's more complicated than it has to be, but other languages do it, too.
Yeah, translating idioms can be pretty amusing. Having studied a number of languages, that's always true. And because prepositions are idiomatic, those are usually the most difficult part of any language to truly get the hang of. You can usually spot a non-native speaker by how often they mix up prepositions, since they try to translate them from their own language. This is true no matter which language is their native and which language is the one they are attempting to speak, unless one of the two languages has done away with prepositions altogether (I'm not familiar with any, but who knows, Hungarian does tend to shove them on the end of the noun instead of their own word, but they're still there, so that counts).
I can't tell between Australian and New Zealand, either, so don't worry. I can usually get the region of Africa, but considering how artificial the national boundaries in Africa are, it's truly impossible in many cases to pinpoint a country. For example, in West Africa, I know that ethnic and linguistic similarities are often in bands that stretch from east to west across a number of countries, which go from north to south across many ethnic/linguistic groups.
I have a couple references I think you might find amusing. On the subject of "America" vs USA, check out The Arrogant Worms, "I Am Not American." I think you will find it amusing, the group is Canadian, and they riff on the same thing that bothers you. I've been meaning to suggest that for a few posts now. The other one just came to me from you attempting to literally translate Dutch sayings into English. That is News Radio's episode "Super Karate Monkey Death Car." In it, one of the characters writes a book that gets translated into Japanese, is a success, and then they try to translate it back to English. The result is humorous. You can find clips of him reading from it easily...
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@Gelderland
Sorry, but yeah, I think it is you being a bit weird :P. When people say "America," 99.9% of the time, they mean the USA. For the continents, it's almost always specified North or South, or at the very least, pluralized into "the Americas."
Actually, no, calling things differently is not exclusively an English thing. Every language I have studied translates the names of countries/nationalities. For example, German in English, Deutsch in German, tysk in Norwegian, nyemetsky in Russian (transliteration is tough), etc. I can't remember the French or Spanish words, but they're different, too, I know they add at least one more beginning letter. The words aren't even close to each other. I agree that it's more complicated than it has to be, but other languages do it, too.
Yeah, translating idioms can be pretty amusing. Having studied a number of languages, that's always true. And because prepositions are idiomatic, those are usually the most difficult part of any language to truly get the hang of. You can usually spot a non-native speaker by how often they mix up prepositions, since they try to translate them from their own language. This is true no matter which language is their native and which language is the one they are attempting to speak, unless one of the two languages has done away with prepositions altogether (I'm not familiar with any, but who knows, Hungarian does tend to shove them on the end of the noun instead of their own word, but they're still there, so that counts).
I can't tell between Australian and New Zealand, either, so don't worry. I can usually get the region of Africa, but considering how artificial the national boundaries in Africa are, it's truly impossible in many cases to pinpoint a country. For example, in West Africa, I know that ethnic and linguistic similarities are often in bands that stretch from east to west across a number of countries, which go from north to south across many ethnic/linguistic groups.
I have a couple references I think you might find amusing. On the subject of "America" vs USA, check out The Arrogant Worms, "I Am Not American." I think you will find it amusing, the group is Canadian, and they riff on the same thing that bothers you. I've been meaning to suggest that for a few posts now. The other one just came to me from you attempting to literally translate Dutch sayings into English. That is News Radio's episode "Super Karate Monkey Death Car." In it, one of the characters writes a book that gets translated into Japanese, is a success, and then they try to translate it back to English. The result is humorous. You can find clips of him reading from it easily...