Well, just for the record, I'm a 'Merican myself, so I don't mind the usage at all. To me personally, American refers primarily to US people. But I was just pointing out that this is not a universal view. I've heard that in Africa, it's common to use the word "European" to mean any white person. So people would call us European. Words are slippery things.

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As above, so below

Maybe it's because I grew up speaking French a lot, but the Spanish grammar never bothered me that much. I suppose you're talking about the conjugations and the gender? They both exist in French as well.

What still bothers me about French, even though I used it as a kid, is that in many cases the verbs sound the same (like peu, peut, peux, whatever) but they are spelled differently. And I learned mostly by sound, so I always forget which letter to put at the end of the verb. In Spanish at least they sound different, so it's easier to remember.

But maybe you mean something more with "hardcore grammar," like verb tenses.

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As above, so below

But this use and understanding of the term is so widespread and ingrained that there's little point in fighting it. What really drove it home for me was being called American, and responding, "uh, no, Canadian!"

I grew up in a household where German was spoken, and I am still fluent, though my writing sucks. My own kids were in French immersion. A couple of years ago we were in Europe, and visiting with extended family living on the German side of the border from Strasbourg. One evening there were about 15 adults and teens present for dinner. The conversations were lively, and what really impressed me was how the languages spoken shifted almost seamlessly between French, German and English, depending on who happened to be talking with whom. My kids were right in there with their French, and I was very proud of them.

But I guess I'd just like to underscore what others have already said: Knowing more than one language can really enrich your life.

Not in this part of the country. America means North and South America here.

Edit: On second thought, that might have to do with my peer group. I'm a political studies major.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

Not as much an oddball as Romanian, which has a strong Slavonic influence.

Sard (or Sardinian) and Rhaeto-Romanic (ie, Romansch, Ladin, etc) tend to come a bit of a surprise to someone with a knowledge of some of the mainstream Romance languages, much as Icelandic and Faroese do to those who have some mainstream Scandinavian.

French stands out from most other Romance languages because it has a much stronger Germanic influence on it (whisper it quietly): the Franks came from Franken in Germany, the Burgundians from Bornholm in Denmark (previously called Borgundarholm), and the Normans from other bits of Scandinavia. The French like to point to their Gallic (ie Celtic) substratum, but this actually seems to have had very little influence on the language, much as the Celtic substratum in Britain has had very little influence on English, in contrast to the strong French influence.

I have the same impression. It has been harder to me to learn French than the other romances.

I also agree that Romanian is the oddball romance. It is barely understandable to me.

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If you're careful enough, nothing bad or good will ever happen to you.

I always call my country "the USA", but there's a lack of a word for things and people of the USA other than "American". Mexicans have the same problem referring to this country; they can call it "los Estados Unidos", but that doesn't give them a word for its things/people other than "Norte-americano"... and the fact that they use that has the interesting implication that they don't consider Mexico to be a part of "North America"... and also that they either aren't separating Canada and the USA at all or consider "North America" to refer to the USA exclusively, which would leave them with no name that I know of for the continent.

I think we should treat the acronym "Usa" as a name, which allows the version "Usan" for things/people from Usa, but that mysteriously hasn't caught on. The "Founding Fathers" were definitely negligent about coming up with a real name for this place.

Anyway, in the USA, Spanish has a chance of occasionally being useful, but French practically doesn't, at least not any more than Romanian and Khmer do. For travel, French would be more useful if you go to Africa or some parts of southern Asia, and Spanish would be more useful if you go to Latin America or some Pacific islands. I started to learn Spanish a couple of times, but quit for the same reason as when I also quit German: learning foreign languages is a lot of work!

But that work could actually get easier if you go for BOTH langauges at once, depending on your mentality. I remember linguistics and relationships between languages, and examples that illlustrate those principles, more easily than I remember a single foreign language's words, so I'm hoping to eventually get the chance to take both Spanish and Latin at the same time just to find out if it helps to be dealing learning and observing the relationship between them rather than either one in isolation. My mother has a degree in Spanish and has worked as a translator, but also took classes along the way in related languages like Latin and French and Medieval Spanish and some of the minor secondary Romance languages/dialects that are spoken in Spain and Spanish-like but not standard Spanish. She says it's all merged in her mind sufficiently to feel like it's just versions of one langauge she called "Splatin". Show her some text written in the Iberian Peninsula in the last couple of millennia or more, and she can tell you what part of the peninsula and what century it was written in.

Not so mysterious, really.

That's probably because, at the time, most people thought of themselves as citizens of their state - the state's membership in the United States of America wasn't really meaningful, identity-wise. So if you were to ask somebody "What do you call people who come from where you do?", they'd answer with "New Yorker" or somesuch.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Just for the record, I don't mind citizens of the USA being called Americans. As has been noted, there's really no other word for it. But USA and America are not synonyms.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

I am, to outward appearances, simply a human. The fact that I live in the geographical region known as the United States at this moment is trivial.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

I feel the same way, but unfortunately most don't. And if someone dislikes you (or likes you for that matter) just because you're "American", then how you personally feel about it won't hold much weight with them. And those Americans whose self-identity is tied up in their place of residence will see you as "unpatriotic" for not feeling as they do.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

You should try being Scottish and constantly seeing the UK referred to as "England", and all British people called "English". It's infuriating, especially from people who should know better.

Must admit, the word "American" makes me think of somebody from the USA. I guess it's probably just too commonly used that way. Oddily enough if it's used to describe climate, wildlife or something non-people related I always think of it as referring to "the Americas", though, including all of the constituent countries thereof.

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I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, was in no way fair comment and was motivated purely by malice. I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you or your family, and I hereby undertake not to repeat any such slander at any time in the future.

I have never understood that the problem with calling an american an american is. Do citizens of Brazil or Argentina or Colombia or Canada call themseves americans?

the useage I have come across is identical to Lianachans. An american person is someone from the USA. An american creature is generally understood to be from either continent, tho most of the time it is indicated which continent.

I learned German,Latin,Spanish, Italian, and some Russian.....courtesy of the US taxpayers.....You will find only one thing peculiar with Espanol, "Bey de Baca==Beh de Burro....." and the long winded arguments over "Ser" y "Estar".

In other words, the BEE vs VEE pronounciation rule....ie: Chevy is Cheby etc... and the two verbs for "To Be" in Spanish. I think they have written long winded books about this, and I still have trouble knowing just what to say......other than..."Una Cerveza por favor, en Vaso frio con la Sal y Limon..." This is the most important phrase.....

Dale in Ala

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"Ad astra per aspera"

Americans from the U.S.A. call ourselves Americans as a matter of course; 90% of the people who grew up here probably don't give it a second thought. It seems to be part of our national narcissism that we really don't consider how anyone outside the country sees that habit. Even those from the rest of the Americas.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

They feel that they are as entitled to do so as any American™, and not without reason. It is the name of the continent, after all.

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"All your bias are belong to us." Ara Pacis
"A witty saying proves nothing." Voltaire

I make darned sure never to do that. When in doubt, go with British.

Again, I don't mind people from the US being called American. No one really does. The problem is when "America" is used as a synonym for "USA." Look at it from my perspective. More of North America is in Canada than in the US. And the US is a very small part of the Americas.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

...but saying "America" is not the same thing as saying "the Americas"...