[Dr. Marten]

"Actually the whole name is not "pretty country". it's America, The "Me" sound translated to that character. It's a short name for something that would have required 4 Chinese characters to translate."

 

I didn't say anything about "pretty country". That was the other poster who said something about "pretty land" and pretty would actually be more like "漂亮的".

 

Also, there's nothing about "me" in Meiguo. "Mei" (美), means beautiful while "guo" (国), means country.

 

Same with China. The name China is actually derrived from "Qin", as in the first Emperor to unify the nation. In Chinese, China is called "Zhongguo" (中国), or "middle country / middle kingdom".

 

Not all of the names of the various countries are translated in a "phonetic" manner that corresponds with their Chinese pronunciation.

[pganini]

Meiguo is a short pronounciation for America ("me" in america in English pronounciation = Mei in Chinese). It's actually Ah- Mei- Li - Ka in the official name. If you were to translated United States of America, that's what it'd be. But for short, they used Meiguo because it does have the "beautiful" meaning, but it's based on pronounciation of America. In other words, it's a short name for USA.

[pganini]

Also, France is "Fa-guo" (Phonetic). It doesnt' mean LAWFUL country (the word for Fa means law, but it's a phonetic translation).

England, same thing. It doesnt' mean "heroic country". It's just the phonetic translation for "Eng".

Germany is "De Guo", in otherwords, it is not a "moral" country as the translation shows. It's because DEUTCHLAND is the name. DEU roughly translates to Deguo.

Spain - (Si Ban Ya) Phonetic based.

I am not sure if any country in Chinese translation would not be phonetic based.

Canada - "Ja na da" No real meaning here.

In other words, they're all phonetic based.

[pganini]

Actually even Zhong guo (to use the Communist pronounciation) isn't just "middle kingdom".

Ever heard of Zhong hua?

Or Hua-Ren?

Zhong is actually short for Zhong Hua. In fact, People's Republic of China is actually Zhong HUA Ren-Min...... not "Zhong ren-min".

Zhong guo is a short name for "China", just as Mei guo is a short name for USA. The first time I have ever heard of "China" being referred to as a the "Middle Kingdom" was when we moved to the US from Taiwan :)