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You know what I find really ironic? People that don't speak a lick of Chinese instructing native Chinese speakers on (in)proper usage. I know its hard, but stop embarassing yourself moron. 德 is the character used in Germany 得 is to get Phoenetically, the words are homonyms, but different. Also your complete and utter misunderstanding of the purpose of romanization is ludicrous. Te Kuo LOL. The word is pronounced and written the same either on the mainland or Taiwan, the difference is a matter of romanization systems, Wade-Giles (not really a standard) for the RoC vs Pinyin for the PRC. You are an example of the subject matter in the original article, idiots with a cursory knowledge/ignorance of Chinese feigning some degree of depth. As for being PRC shills, I'd work as one, but unfortunately they don't pay me enough :*(

LOL! :)

I was busy reading Gordon's response that I missed tallhappy's "to get" or "to receive" for Germany :)

I don't know of any Chinese name for other countries that aren't phonetic, other than Japan because they use Chinese characters. I think they also don't realize that Chinese often shorten the name because it's a pain to write 4 characters when one would do. Deutschland is shorten to "De", America is shortened using the "me in A'me'rica" or Mei in the closest Chinese pronounciation.

Some countries are harder to pronounce, like Portugal, which is "Pu Tao Ya" and never shortened. Personally I have never learned Pinyin in terms of using Roman characters (Taiwan teaches a different method), but Tallhappy would read Portgual as "Grape seed" or "Grape sprout" i bet :) LOL!!!!

What's confusing, i'll bet, for all these non-native Chinese speakers is that not ALL country ends with "guo". :) Usually the country with "SHORTENED" names, ends with "guo".

Zhong "guo". Shortened
Mei "guo". shortend.
Fa "guo". France - shortened
De "guo". Germany/Deutchland, shortened.
Au-da-li-ya (Australia) non shortened.
Au Zhou (Australia, or rather, Australia CONTINENT as the literal translation), shortened.
Eee-Da-Li (Italy) - NOT shortened (no guo in there
Pu-Tao-Ya (Portugal) - NOT shortened (Tallhappy would say say Grape Sprout country!)
In-Du (India, Hindu) - Not shortened. Again, no "guo" either.

Some countries such as USA, France, and Germany had their name shortened for such a long period that no one ever uses their true phonetic names any longer, even in maps, but the real name is there if anyone wants to get an older map and it'll show up.

Some countries, such as Australia, can be called with either the long version or the short version.

Some countries like Italy, Portugal or Spain, only long version is used.

In other words, nearly any country ends with "guo" has its name shortened. Not all, but most.

(I apologize for not using Pinyin in the right way, but my pinyin education in Taiwan was with different characters, non-Roman/non-Western characters).