It’s not always easy to communicate with an international audience without annoying somebody.
Chapters:
00:00 Unexpected cultural differences
00:42 International captions
02:32 The soccer controversy
03:04 Off topic: British school slang
04:21 The soccer controversy, part 2
05:52 The Americas
Music:
“Hot Swing”
by Kevin MacLeod https://incompetech.com/
Creative Commons Attribution licence
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32 Comments
I was taught that North America and South America are two separate continents. That was in the 2000s in northern Germany.
The whole "it's football, not soccer" is a hysterical British reaction to the fact US Americans have a habit of shortening American Football to football.
6:06 As a German I was taught that's two continents just sharing the second part of their names. Nordamerika and Südamerika. Because if they are one continent, then you have also to call Eurasia or even Eurafrasia as one continent as the divides between Europa, Asia and Afrika are not more dividing than the Isthmus of Panama. But as they are sharing the name, "Amerikaner" can refer to all citizens of the two continents.
Regarding the designation of United States citizens as "US-Americans," surely there are analogies in English that one can draw upon, aren't there? I mean, it is not actually all that rare for two areas to share the same name (Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia (country), and South Georgia (islands)), but this occurs particularly often when a larger region shares its name with a smaller region located within it (City of London, London, London metropolitan area). Therefore, there must surely be a way to distinguish between residents of the broader region and those of the smaller, inner region.
I'm fairly certain that the people saying that it should be "US American" don't actually think that it could be confusing. At least not if they are native English or German speakers.
I suspect they are just annoyed that "American", which sounds like it should be someone from anywhere in the Americas, is referring to one particular country. One not exactly known for its humility.
I see 3 continents and I'd call it sportsball
I'm currently studying to become an English teacher. Thanks for this video – especially the part about soccer. I was one of those "Don't call it soccer" people and this information was entirely new to me.
Huge pro tip: instead of using English or German as the languages of your channel, learn Japanese and make it a Japanese only channel where they refer to football as "soccer", and then when people complain you can be: no that's the one word for football in Japanese, don't be angry at Japanese, everyone loves Japanese!
Just to piss off US-Americans (because their country irritates me endlessly) I use the word USians for them.
Also, I doubt many coutries outside of the UK and USA use association football or soccer. To us in the rest of the world it is just football. All the other socalled footballs are played with a ball in your hands, a no-no in real football unless you are a goalkeeper.
1:22min I always thought it's "doughnut" in British English and "donut" in American English.
2:07min To make it even wilder: In my western German tongue we use the French word "trottoir" instead of saying Bürgersteig (pavement, sidewalk).
THANK YOU! The people that get so worked up about "soccer" vs "football" are just tedious, especially when you understand the word's origins. As for the rest, I will continue to say that language was a terrible idea and we should probably just go back to grunting at each other. 🙂
Andrew, dein Akzent kommt an ein paar Stellen durch. Deine Aussprache von "Amerika" betont die Silbe "Me" minimal zu kurz, und bei "US-Amerikaner" ist der Übergang zwischen dem "U" und dem "Es" ein klein wenig zu fließend. Ich weiß, Erbsenzähler, ich bin nun mal Deutscher, was soll ich machen.😛
1:55 the British pavement isn't pavement! It's sometimes pavERS, but usually UNPAVED poured concrete.
WTF!? Why do British call private school public school? Literally the opposite of public.
Soccer Football came from one place, which was not private school. Association football is correct. That's the source, not private school slang. 5:20 "we used soccer and football interchangeably" right. Because they're two parts of the phrase referring to the same English-originated sport.
I don't think the whole of east germany calls a Berliner a Pfannkuchen.
In north east germany (at least as far as I know) it's Berliner too. A Pfannkuchen is something like Crêpes.
Most black americans are NOT african americans. Elon Musk is an African American (legally only an African Canadian, because he's an illegal immigrant to the United States).
Honestly I have never heard anybody in Germany consider "America" one combined continent. They are always distinguished in North America and South America.
About America/Amerika: In colloquially spoken German, it's the same as the British do. When "Amerika" is mentioned, usually it's referred to the US.
just call it "not Rugby"
If you want to differentiate Murica the country from the two continents you can always just say "America, you know, that s-hole country."
Greenland as part of the Danish Kingdom is Europe and not America Amerika murica
the whole muricans are not Americans thing has increased a bit since the VSNA threatened to annex Canada. Canadians happen to live on THE american continent (like Mexicans and all the others) and are therefor included in the term Americans. People from the VSNA claim that Americans in their part of the world is shorthand for US citizens, which is me shit equal
As a Brit I hate it when so many Brits get so uptight about those that call it 'soccer' – as you say, the term is of British origin!
"Internationally" it's called football, only we are not English-speakers!
Norw: Fotball, Danish: Fotbold, Swed: Fotboll, Finnish: Jalkapallo etc.
In Mexico, and the rest of iberoamérica as far as i am aware, américa is a single continent, that can be subdivided into north and south. To us "Americano" means someone from the continent, and "Estadounidense" (Unidedstatetian) means someone from the USA. Same for américa, it refers to the continent, not the country of USA.
(You can anger many a hispanophone by using the terms in an aglo-centric way).
You said "con-TROV-ersy. I think you meant CON-troversy. (Sorry, I just couldn't resist.) 😜
I personally normally see NA and SA as different continents. Although on a map also often kinda as one.When I say Amerika I normally mean the United States of America. So when I say Amerikaner, I mean someone from the USA.
Sometimes I do expand the term American for more than just the USA. I even once extended the term "Yankee" which depending on where you live refers to a New Yorker, New Englander or American to Canada as well, although that more as a joke, because the fact that the term gets broader the further away you live.
Ich bin deutsch, und ich würde auch sagen, dass Amerika zwei Kontinente sind, und mich stört immer, dass es nicht zwei Namen dafür gibt, statt nur Nord- und Süd-.
Und wenn ich Amerikaner sage oder höre, meine ich eigentlich immer US-Amerikaner, aber eben auch, weil ich wenn ich den Kontinent meinen würde, Nordamerikaner oder Südamerikaner sagen würde.
Except that everyone else in America south of the United States (i.e. Latin America) also considers it one continent which was firstly named and labeled as so in its southern part.
And also US citizens calling themselves Americans also contributes to their theories of exceptionalism, with roots on the Monroe Doctrine.
Same logic applied to the beef between Greece and North Macedonia, btw.
1:18 I think in the US it's jelly donut instead of doughnut
could be wrong tho
That so called America is in fact 3 continent's.
It's located on the North, South and the Caribbean Continental plates.
I wouldn't argue with any of this, apart from the idea that football is just a sport played on foot. Using one example of a sport played on horses is clearly a misnomer – as it doesn't explain basketball, baseball, netball, never mind handball!
In english the term "Usonian" can beused to refer to someone as being specifically from the united States of America. It's not exactly in common usage, but it still exists and solves a problem (by creating the new one of explaining what it means)