"كَنَدا وَأَمْريكا"
Translation:Canada and America
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2439
About using America for designating the USA instead of the whole continent? It's not really a good news. Like if Germany was called Europe.
- 1015
Except English speaking people don't really ever confuse the two when looking at usage in context. Generally we'd know if someone was talking about the continent or the country; we'd usually add "North" America, "Central" America or "South" America in speech to clarify if necessary. Saying "America" is centuries old common usage to simplify "United States of America" - People do this type of thing all the time: It's like calling the Netherlands, "Holland" or referring to the United Kingdom as "England". Besides, there's no other way in the English language to describe something or someone from the USA since "USA-an" doesn't exist as a word so it must be "American".
Does "أَمْريكا" refer to the United States, North America, North + South America as a whole, or something else? If just the US what are the continents called? Are North and South America treated as one continent in the Arabic speaking world?
Most likely, this is referring to solely the United States as other countries and nationalities are pretty specific in these lessons. Plus, most countries use the term "America" in regards to the U.S. More often, if someone is going to refer to someone's nationality in Central and South America, they will be specific about that nationality.
