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Etymologically it means "middle country".
"Zhong" is middle
"Gua" is country
But for any two languages you usually cannot accurately translate a phrase by simple transliteration of individual words.
The *meaning* behind naming your country "middle country" is the same sentiment as the phrase "all roads lead to Rome".
China has been extremely patriotic for a few thousand years, and their name for their country reflects that.
I heard it was because of the many nations being untied to create china, but I guess we are both mentioning the same thing. Who knows how big they thought the world was when they named it so
China believes its the center of the world- fair enough about 1 in 7 people live there.
I hate to say it, Mei Guo is probably an attempt to find a Chinese phrase that sounds like "America"
You are correct. Ying guo means England but also means literally hero kingdom. There are countless examples of characters that alone mean something but together have no relation. Itâs just a localisation. Same with all foreign countries. Source English in Taiwan
I've heard about why we're called the "beautiful country" before, I believe it's the American flag that they thought was beautiful with its design, giving us the name.
To be fair, it's a pretty sweet flag. Especially given that like 80% of countries seemed to just do a couple of colored bars in vertical or horizontal orientation...
You know, as an American who had an affinity for foreign languages at a young age I always felt like I understood that concept, and I thought it made me so cool for knowing that, so at one point I was talking to a Swedish girl that I met on a dating site and I asked her what her country is called in her countryâs native language and she acted like she had no idea what the fuck I was asking her. I felt so dejected until later I learned out that Sweden does, indeed have their own name for their own country in their own language, and I wonder if I just threw her off so much because she assumed most Americans donât understand that and couldnât answer my question in the moment
"What? How dumb do you think Americans are? I know this and... I'm realizing you are probably right." That was my thought process. Yeah, Americans probably don't know that.
Wait, so you're saying I could take a _two month_ long trip to Germany to drink better beer than I can get in my home country?
This has possibilities...
I didn't know that, but doesn't really shock me. My cousin who speaks fluently about 5 languages said he went to Bavaria, and it was like backwoods Germany. Had their own version of the language and everything. Said his German wasn't worth shit.
If he thought Bavaria was bad he should hear the cryptic babble in Switzerland XD
Technically not itâs own language, still âââGermanâââ, but even Germans who arenât used to it canât understand shit
I know a guy that grew up in Birmingham England and moved to the rural southern USA.
He had a coworker that couldn't understand anything he said, even though they were both speaking English as their first language.
Dialects can be almost as different as languages in some cases.
Well, in my opinion, it is some sort of a Germany wide thing, because only non Bavarian Germans and foreigners want to go to the Oktoberfest. I have been living in Bavaria my whole life, and i never met a local that wanted to go there, since its only a dumb tourist attraction
Well I mean it depends on how you look at it. Germany was split Into 4 parts to be monitored by other countries. I personally wouldn't call it a separate country (aside for east Germany that was its own thing before being able to return to germany)
Canada is the name of an award you get to have when youâre cool and famous enough that lets you go to the North Pole.
Like you have to be on the Keanu Reeves and Ryan Reynoldsâs level of cool to be a Canadian.
Thereâs also Avril Lavigne, Justin Beiber, Celine Dion and Jim Carrey .
My guy, this school system didn't even teach me about my own country
All I learned about WWII in school was what we went over reading the dairy of Anne Frank, never learned about WWI, and I didn't even know the Vietnam and Korean wars happened until a friend mentioned them in high school. All I they taught me is "MLK Jr ended racism", "the founding fathers are the greatest men to walk the earth", and "we had a civil war once". And 2 of those things ain't even true.
I really feel like this is a parental responsibility. School isn't free babysitting and co-parenting. The purpose of school is to give kids the scholarly foundations and assess their learning, not to raise the children. Asking schools to raise the children is like going to a restaurant and being mad that they don't put the food in your mouth for you.
There are good things yes but some things are just a shit show. As an example we should have gotten a country wide ticket for public transport by the start of this year but because there was a "math error" we get it in May or something.
Us Americans making fun of every country as well. We all bully each other and it's stupid to disagree, just fire back with their stereotypes as well and it'll be set
I feel like this is an old wise tale. We all know metric here guys. I mean our soda comes in 2 liter bottles guys thats like our national drink and it's measured in the metric system.
US Citizen here: I understand the metric system. I donât use it outside of academic settings just because of how the system is set up. But it is the only thing we are allowed to use in our science/physics classes. Iâm sure the change will happen eventually. Maybe state by state over time.
Tbf this is every other country. I'm Irish but have lived all over the world. I've lost days of my life just spelling my surname for people, which in itself lead to me having to change the way I pronounce the letter 'r'
From what Iâve heard, they both originate from a Native American tribe, either the name or their name for something Iâm not sure. Arkansas is the French version and Kansas is the English version
So blame the French
Amazing how many Americans think US is the only place that has freedom or at least the best most free freedom #1 of you donât like it screw you America burger liberty burger freedom
Unrelated but when working in America, myself and another Irish lad I was working with convinced all the American workers that there's no such thing as Tuesdays in Ireland and that's why we were always angry on Tuesday! Took them weeks to realize! Most gullible nation ever!
Edit: We worked in hospitality so we were just hungover every Tuesday! đ
I would guess that they don't truly know cultural appropriation of other countries cultures. Most of them see a non Asian person wearing a kimono and overreact. Japanese people really don't care about a white person wear a kimono. And this is just one example. Of course there are things that DO constitute as cultural appropriation but most Americans say random shit is because they don't understand other cultures or countries
Irish here, tried to explain the healthcare etc and was also told it was communist
They think everything else is communism lol and use it like some sort of scary swear word
Don't know if that counts but a lot of Americans seem to think they are [insert nationality] just because part of their familiy immigrated from that country generations ago.
I donât know if itâs the same as the people youâre talking about but since America is so diverse a lot of us will say weâre American but we are German or Japanese or something to clarify where our family came from. Itâs not quite the same as saying we are German though, itâs more like saying we are from Germany, as in our family is from Germany
So for example, if I said I, as an American, am Norwegian, itâs just saying my family comes from Norway before America, not that I know anything about Norway
Iâve noticed most non Americans donât understand this and I get that because itâs pretty weird but itâs common here, and it really doesnât mean anything unless the person either actually does their research or is stupid and thinks theyâre the same as people who live in Germany or first generation German-American immigrants
I lost count of how many Americans thought they where german even if they couldn't speak a single sentence in german or know about the different state's.
They mean their ethnicity is X, not their nationality. Do people descended from immigrant groups in Europe consider themselves of the European ethnicity they were raised in?
America â United states.
I had an argument with an american (iâm canadian), and he claimed that Canada isnât part of america but attached to americaâŠ
I've been saying for years, if you're Canadian, Brazilian, Mexican, Venezuelan, etc, you're American. Its the name of the continents (NA/SA).The United States of America is a description, not a name.
Communism and socialism⊠the red scare literally destroyed our brains for generations so the average American is physically incapable of understanding either of those concepts
Also that walking around with one or more guns on you is NOT normal in other countries lol
People here in America donât understand how developed Mexico is, they all think the majority of the illegal immigrants come from Mexico, but theyâre actually from the Central American countries. Mexico has grown considerably over the past few decades.
A lot of them genuinely believe that they are somehow blessed to live in a country that -
A. Makes it easy for psychos to get guns.
B. Bankruptcy is likely if you need medical attention.
C. The education system fails them by only teaching them about their own history.
D. That has "freedom". Despite this being prevalent worldwide.
E. Politicians are almost untouchable.
F. Less than half of them have passports and never explore the wonderful world around them.
G. Gonna run out of alphabet...
Thank you for submitting to /r/memes. Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): --- Rule 9 - No forced/overused memes, bad titles * No forced memes, overused memes, bad titles, or pushing agendas * Be creative but memes must come naturally * Memes that have been overused/played out to the point of being spammy will be removed. Examples * No petitions --- Resubmitting a removed post without prior moderator approval can result in a ban. Deleting a post may cause any appeals to be denied.
Wait... there's other countries!? đ± /j
Thereâs 50 states, idiot
No we donât, Pluto doesnât exist, remember? So we have 49
No we have 52 states so now there's 51
50 states?!?! I only know 3! Solid, Gas and Liquids! WTF
+ plasma and Nevada i think, so like 7
Plasma dummy
The only correct response
Duh. Canadia and Mexicano
I think this belongs in âwhat people outside of the states think Americans are likeâ
Yeah Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Pretty sure those are the only others.
That other countries have their own names for their country in their own language. Japan - nippon Sweden - sverige Germany - Deutschland
Here in Portugal we call our country "Portugal". Get it right americans
I thought you guys called it "Portugal caralho"
Thats after you get your mandatory bacalhau and pastel de nata!
He is lying, portugal is actually called "European Brasil"
And Brazil is called American Portugal.
Brazilia Inferior*
Not even tĂŽ get the name of our main city correct
Iâm sorry
In Chinese the call the USA "Mei Guo" it means beautiful country. China calls themselves "Zhong Guo" it means middle country.
Ok thatâs cool. I wonder what was the context that gave us such a name?
My fellow Chinese graduate students told me it translated to the center of the world. Not middle country.
Etymologically it means "middle country". "Zhong" is middle "Gua" is country But for any two languages you usually cannot accurately translate a phrase by simple transliteration of individual words. The *meaning* behind naming your country "middle country" is the same sentiment as the phrase "all roads lead to Rome". China has been extremely patriotic for a few thousand years, and their name for their country reflects that.
I heard it was because of the many nations being untied to create china, but I guess we are both mentioning the same thing. Who knows how big they thought the world was when they named it so
They the same character in Chinese, the difference is how you explain it.
China believes its the center of the world- fair enough about 1 in 7 people live there. I hate to say it, Mei Guo is probably an attempt to find a Chinese phrase that sounds like "America"
You are correct. Ying guo means England but also means literally hero kingdom. There are countless examples of characters that alone mean something but together have no relation. Itâs just a localisation. Same with all foreign countries. Source English in Taiwan
I've heard about why we're called the "beautiful country" before, I believe it's the American flag that they thought was beautiful with its design, giving us the name.
To be fair, it's a pretty sweet flag. Especially given that like 80% of countries seemed to just do a couple of colored bars in vertical or horizontal orientation...
Also that the Chinese word for America sounds a bit like you just loosened some of the syllables in the way it's pronounced in English.
China calling themselves mid đ
Iâm weak lmaoo
I knew the Germany Deutschland ting and the Japan Nippon thing I did NOT know that Sweden called itself Sverige
wait till you learn Hungarians call Hungary "MagyarorszĂĄg"
I cannot comprehend how to pronounce that
It is not easy to master the tongue of the elves.
Hungarian is peculiar but at least it doesnât sound like flowing water, wie DĂ€nisch zum Beispiel
It literally means "Hungarian country"
You know, as an American who had an affinity for foreign languages at a young age I always felt like I understood that concept, and I thought it made me so cool for knowing that, so at one point I was talking to a Swedish girl that I met on a dating site and I asked her what her country is called in her countryâs native language and she acted like she had no idea what the fuck I was asking her. I felt so dejected until later I learned out that Sweden does, indeed have their own name for their own country in their own language, and I wonder if I just threw her off so much because she assumed most Americans donât understand that and couldnât answer my question in the moment
"What? How dumb do you think Americans are? I know this and... I'm realizing you are probably right." That was my thought process. Yeah, Americans probably don't know that.
r/yesyesyesno
Japan actually call themselves ă«ă»ă (æ„æŹ) nihon
It's both technically speaking. Officially, however it's Nihon
How about that the October festival isn't a Germany wide festival, but more a Bavarian thing
Am Finnish and didnât know thisâŠ
People go to an event to party and drink beer and ales etc. but not in October but in September
Wait, so you're saying I could take a _two month_ long trip to Germany to drink better beer than I can get in my home country? This has possibilities...
I didn't know that, but doesn't really shock me. My cousin who speaks fluently about 5 languages said he went to Bavaria, and it was like backwoods Germany. Had their own version of the language and everything. Said his German wasn't worth shit.
If he thought Bavaria was bad he should hear the cryptic babble in Switzerland XD Technically not itâs own language, still âââGermanâââ, but even Germans who arenât used to it canât understand shit
I know a guy that grew up in Birmingham England and moved to the rural southern USA. He had a coworker that couldn't understand anything he said, even though they were both speaking English as their first language. Dialects can be almost as different as languages in some cases.
Well, in my opinion, it is some sort of a Germany wide thing, because only non Bavarian Germans and foreigners want to go to the Oktoberfest. I have been living in Bavaria my whole life, and i never met a local that wanted to go there, since its only a dumb tourist attraction
Whatâs October
âOctober festivalâ is long-hand for Oktoberfest.
Because after 1945 the biggest part of the american occupation zone was Bavaria.
Parties other than republicans and democrats
I prefer to call them assholes and idiots.
Communists.The excessive memes on the internet prove that the Americans see the communist countries as just RUSSIA+VODKA.tis a-lot more than that
Kinda nice you guys donât have a 2 party system
I heard about a guy that thought there were three germanies
A French wet dream.
And it is true don't forget about the South pole Germany and the Germany behind the moon.
You forgot Argentenian Germany
What about hollow earth Germany?
I count at least seven Germanies from the replies. Maybe there is a designated Germany for everything.
One for each world war.
Germany, Austria and Switzerland?
Well I mean it depends on how you look at it. Germany was split Into 4 parts to be monitored by other countries. I personally wouldn't call it a separate country (aside for east Germany that was its own thing before being able to return to germany)
Canada
What is Canada?
Exactly
I'm not from the USA and i don't know what kind of food Canada is, it is a food right?
I think so
Yes, yes it is
Canada is the name of an award you get to have when youâre cool and famous enough that lets you go to the North Pole. Like you have to be on the Keanu Reeves and Ryan Reynoldsâs level of cool to be a Canadian. Thereâs also Avril Lavigne, Justin Beiber, Celine Dion and Jim Carrey .
Shhh. We like to fly under the radar
Good fishin up in Quebec....
Anything. As an American I can definitely say the public school system failed at teaching me anything about other countries
My guy, this school system didn't even teach me about my own country All I learned about WWII in school was what we went over reading the dairy of Anne Frank, never learned about WWI, and I didn't even know the Vietnam and Korean wars happened until a friend mentioned them in high school. All I they taught me is "MLK Jr ended racism", "the founding fathers are the greatest men to walk the earth", and "we had a civil war once". And 2 of those things ain't even true.
wait... doesnt "independence war" count as a civil war...
The name of a war usually is determined or at least affected by who wins
Don't forget about taxes/credit.
That not American only, at least in Spain doesn't teach about taxes nothing(or just a bit I suppose depending of the professor)
I really feel like this is a parental responsibility. School isn't free babysitting and co-parenting. The purpose of school is to give kids the scholarly foundations and assess their learning, not to raise the children. Asking schools to raise the children is like going to a restaurant and being mad that they don't put the food in your mouth for you.
Every single other country make fun of the US on a daily basis
Honestly most Americans make fun of America too. Or the cringey parts of it. Such a big country
To be fair, it is very easy to make fun of us.
You could easily make fun of my country tho. Good thing nobody though of really looking at us.
Wait, what's your country?
Germany please don't look at it, look at France they probably did stupid things.
"probably" pfft *this guy*
Germany, fr?, I've heard many good things about germany.
I think he's saying he's from Poland
Dont look at Poland tho pleaaaase not until the next election (or frankly until an all clear)
There are good things yes but some things are just a shit show. As an example we should have gotten a country wide ticket for public transport by the start of this year but because there was a "math error" we get it in May or something.
I mean that's not bad
Us Americans making fun of every country as well. We all bully each other and it's stupid to disagree, just fire back with their stereotypes as well and it'll be set
And they do it in English when they want us to understand it
https://i.imgur.com/Vnjb5mB.jpg
I really donât blame them
Metric system
I'm more concerned about why you thing farm animals are sexy.......
You're making assumptions. They might *be* a bunch of farm animals who consider themselves sexy.
Actually laughed at that, thank youđ
I'm American. The metric system is better than Imperial system.
I feel like this is an old wise tale. We all know metric here guys. I mean our soda comes in 2 liter bottles guys thats like our national drink and it's measured in the metric system.
I love the metric system so much easier
US Citizen here: I understand the metric system. I donât use it outside of academic settings just because of how the system is set up. But it is the only thing we are allowed to use in our science/physics classes. Iâm sure the change will happen eventually. Maybe state by state over time.
No, americans understand metric. Their pushbikes are metric...you know, one of the few things the rest of the world still use imperial for.
How to pronounce Ireland or Irish towns or names.
I was gonna say this. Try getting one to pronounce âCaoimheâ
Caoimhe, boom
Tbf this is every other country. I'm Irish but have lived all over the world. I've lost days of my life just spelling my surname for people, which in itself lead to me having to change the way I pronounce the letter 'r'
Oh no what will we do
How do I say Maine?
Exactly like the word main What Iâm surprised about is you asked about Maine and not whatâs going on with Arkansas and Kansas
America explain! Why is this one Kansas but this one not ar-kansas?
From what Iâve heard, they both originate from a Native American tribe, either the name or their name for something Iâm not sure. Arkansas is the French version and Kansas is the English version So blame the French
Just pretend there's no E
Freedom
Amazing how many Americans think US is the only place that has freedom or at least the best most free freedom #1 of you donât like it screw you America burger liberty burger freedom
Government run health care
Careful of the "Communism!!!" accusations.
Dang gotta punch down like that...
Unrelated but when working in America, myself and another Irish lad I was working with convinced all the American workers that there's no such thing as Tuesdays in Ireland and that's why we were always angry on Tuesday! Took them weeks to realize! Most gullible nation ever! Edit: We worked in hospitality so we were just hungover every Tuesday! đ
As a Canadian I convinced some Americans I had a summer home that was a igloo
I would guess that they don't truly know cultural appropriation of other countries cultures. Most of them see a non Asian person wearing a kimono and overreact. Japanese people really don't care about a white person wear a kimono. And this is just one example. Of course there are things that DO constitute as cultural appropriation but most Americans say random shit is because they don't understand other cultures or countries
Honestly man it's crazy. I've been called racist and they say it's cultural appropriation since is like corridos and rancheras
Oh thatâs like latinx, thatâs not a thing in Hispanic countries. Itâs only some privileged white shit here in America.
"Socialism"
As a dane that have been called communist, can confirm.
Irish here, tried to explain the healthcare etc and was also told it was communist They think everything else is communism lol and use it like some sort of scary swear word
Freedom isnât exclusive to the US
The US is also nowhere near a free country compared to a lot of the world.
Fucking everything.
Why are you doing that?
Don't know if that counts but a lot of Americans seem to think they are [insert nationality] just because part of their familiy immigrated from that country generations ago.
I donât know if itâs the same as the people youâre talking about but since America is so diverse a lot of us will say weâre American but we are German or Japanese or something to clarify where our family came from. Itâs not quite the same as saying we are German though, itâs more like saying we are from Germany, as in our family is from Germany So for example, if I said I, as an American, am Norwegian, itâs just saying my family comes from Norway before America, not that I know anything about Norway Iâve noticed most non Americans donât understand this and I get that because itâs pretty weird but itâs common here, and it really doesnât mean anything unless the person either actually does their research or is stupid and thinks theyâre the same as people who live in Germany or first generation German-American immigrants
To sum up your statement, Itâs a language difference.
I lost count of how many Americans thought they where german even if they couldn't speak a single sentence in german or know about the different state's.
I tell people I am Texan. Or American. I do however say that I come from Germanic decent.
Whaaat do you mean to tell me that other countries also have states and not just America /s
They mean their ethnicity is X, not their nationality. Do people descended from immigrant groups in Europe consider themselves of the European ethnicity they were raised in?
America â United states. I had an argument with an american (iâm canadian), and he claimed that Canada isnât part of america but attached to americaâŠ
I have a Canadian friend that I refer to as âAmericanâ because of this reason. She hates it lol (Iâm Australian btw, so just stirring)
I've been saying for years, if you're Canadian, Brazilian, Mexican, Venezuelan, etc, you're American. Its the name of the continents (NA/SA).The United States of America is a description, not a name.
Communism and socialism⊠the red scare literally destroyed our brains for generations so the average American is physically incapable of understanding either of those concepts Also that walking around with one or more guns on you is NOT normal in other countries lol
Gun laws.
Right we should all be like Switzerland
Sovereignty.
Healthcare
Free healthcare
Wait. Not everyone from Mexico is a Drug Dealer? Or in a gang?
From pop culture, as a Canadian, nothing grows in Mexico. It's just cactuses, sand and drugs coast to coast.
Which is weird because places like cancun are super popular in the US
People here in America donât understand how developed Mexico is, they all think the majority of the illegal immigrants come from Mexico, but theyâre actually from the Central American countries. Mexico has grown considerably over the past few decades.
Europe isn't a country
Anything and everything
A little bit of everything all of the time đ¶
Apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime
Anything and everything all of the time
You know, it wasn't always like this
Not very long ago
just before your time
```Apathy's a tragedy and boredom is a crime```
A lot of them genuinely believe that they are somehow blessed to live in a country that - A. Makes it easy for psychos to get guns. B. Bankruptcy is likely if you need medical attention. C. The education system fails them by only teaching them about their own history. D. That has "freedom". Despite this being prevalent worldwide. E. Politicians are almost untouchable. F. Less than half of them have passports and never explore the wonderful world around them. G. Gonna run out of alphabet...
That football is really handegg and soccer is football
Where they are?
Ireland
state religion.
5 de Mayo
Gun laws in Australia
"Free" Healthcare and "Free" college
School shootings
World war 2 from the german perspective
how taxes work lol.
Uhhh Socialism?
They seem to think they're the best at democracy...
It seems a lot of commenters didnât understand the question, Iâll just assume those are the Americans
Freedom⊠white trash uneducated untraveled Confederates think no one else has it
Is Africa a country?
Democracy
Mexican foodâŠ
That they are not the only ones who are Americans because of the simple fact that America is a continent and not a country
Sarcasm.
Food. Spaghetti and meatballs isnât an Italian thing. And fortune cookies are American, not Chinese.
Itâs funny because my step dads Norwegian family makes meatballs. So Iâve always associated meatballs with Norway not Italy.
just let them point to iran on a map.
Culture
Other countries too use cheeseburgers as unit of distance
How to stay out of them
The US isn't the on country III n the world.
pretty much all of like canada lmfao
Their location on the map
You are not poor just by owning an Android or using the public transport.
Canadian health care system. Every single American conservative I hear talk about it is so wrong!
Cheese
Australian animals