Kanji for non-Asian countries

[Jordi]

Are 漢字　for non-Asian countries common? I use Firefox, and I have Rikaichan installed when i typed 私はメキシコ人です。　"Mexico" of course came up in katakana, メキシコ　but when I moused over the whole sentence with Rikaichan, I came across the 漢字 version of Mexico、 墨西哥 is this a common way to write it or should I stick with katakana?

ありがとうございます！

[jbiesnecker]

In my (very limited) experience, the 漢字 names for non-Asian countries aren't that common. Google seems to support this. Searching for the katakana and kanji versions of the word for "America":

亜米利加: 16,300 results
アメリカ: 73.3 million results

This experiment doesn't work with 墨西哥 because that's the country's name in Chinese, and thus return way too many Chinese pages to make it a useful measurement. Be happy you're not learning Chinese, where *every* country name is rendered in characters

[Airth]

If you try 米国 and search for Japanese pages only it returns 7,640,000 hits. Compare that to a Japanese only search for アメリカ of 9,860,000. Almost the same. If it were possible to search for 米 by itself without picking up all the rice that's out there, you would find the kanji is actually used more than the Katakana (on the internet anyway).

Doing the same thing for the UK: イギリス = 7,210,000 / 英国 = 3,750,000 (and let's not get started on whether or not we're talking about England or Britain). Again, as with 米 we can't get a true figure for 英 when it's used alone as an abbreviation.

To answer the original query; stick with メキシコ, however sexy 墨西哥 looks. I showed those kanji to my (Japanese) wife and she just laughed saying it was the first time she'd seen them. In general, there aren't that many countries that are written with kanji, and when they are it's usually for the sake of saving space. In other words, you'll mainly come across them in newspapers, official documents, or the other place that comes to mind - on the signboard for NOVA.

[Jordi]

Airthさん Thanks for clearing that up, I thought they'd be a bit obscure、 but not so much that 日本人 can't really recognise them. I'll stick to katakana then...

ありがとう

[Yoshiko]

In my (beginners) dictionary there's a list of country's.
All non-asian country's are in katakana. Exept for the 'south' in South Africa, that's sometimes written as a kanji.
But not all asian countries are written as kanji. Only China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Wonder why that is.

[Bucko]

If you read a Japanese paper America will almost always be referred to as 米国. I guess it takes up less space than アメリカ. I believe this is the same for England as well - 英国 for newspapers but イギリス in speech.

I remember reading that before the language reforms (just after WWII) many foreign words would be written in kanji. For translators creating subtitles of American movies for Japanese audiences, it was easier in the past because the kanji names were much shorter. These days, names like San Francisco are usually written in katakana - サンフランシスコ, because no one knows the kanji name 桑港 (soukou). This gives movie subtitle creators a headache when trying to be space conscious. Incidently, 桑港 means 'mulberry bay'. Is that what 'San Francisco' means in Spanish??

[annie]

In my (beginners) dictionary there's a list of country's.
All non-asian country's are in katakana. Exept for the 'south' in South Africa, that's sometimes written as a kanji.
But not all asian countries are written as kanji. Only China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Wonder why that is.

Those are all countries that use kanji.

North Korea is written in kanji as well. (北朝鮮）
Also a lot of cities in China are written in kanji.. 北京 (Peking)　台北　(Taipei) 上海 (Shanghai)

[Bueller_007]

Incidently, 桑港 means 'mulberry bay'. Is that what 'San Francisco' means in Spanish??

I don't speak Spanish, but I think it's pretty evident that it means St. Francis, or something of the like.

[Jordi]

Incidently, 桑港 means 'mulberry bay'. Is that what 'San Francisco' means in Spanish??

I don't speak Spanish, but I think it's pretty evident that it means St. Francis, or something of the like.

Buellerさん　is right, It means Saint Francis.