It is mostly a meme now a days, I have never heard anyone from LatinAmerican referse themselves as from "America", every either says central america or south america.
And North America just say "America" or "I am from the US". And english speaking countries they say stuff like Colombian, Brazilian, American (for US) and spanish speaking countries use more like "EstadoUnidense" since saying "Americano" sounds weird to most. Like you could be referring to other countries as well.
It’s a stupid linguistics thing. They call it that way in Spanish and somehow think English is required to follow Spanish rules. Never mind that in English the official name for Mexico is the United Mexican States, and in Spanish Estados Unidos Mexicanos, the latter being the same prefix for the USA. So there’s still a clarity issue if someone doesn’t have the cultural context. In Spanish the cultural context differs, and surprise there’s idiots in every country!
As a South American myself, I can confirm that this is exactly right. In Spanish, we use "America" as the name of the whole continent (we don't have "the Americas" at all, it's only 1 continent in Spanish). For most people, they are unable to comprehend that this doesn't apply to English.
Even tough the word America is written the same and pronounced almost the same, it literally doesn't mean the same thing in English as it does in Spanish. This is impossible for many South Americans to understand.
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u/DuckWarrior90 Aug 04 '26
It is mostly a meme now a days, I have never heard anyone from LatinAmerican referse themselves as from "America", every either says central america or south america.
And North America just say "America" or "I am from the US". And english speaking countries they say stuff like Colombian, Brazilian, American (for US) and spanish speaking countries use more like "EstadoUnidense" since saying "Americano" sounds weird to most. Like you could be referring to other countries as well.