Example:
USA 美国 - 美 mean “beautiful” and 国 is “country”
So when my mom told me we were going to move to 美国, I, having never heard of anything about this country ever before, already had a positive impression of this “beautiful country”.
France 法国 - 法 is one of the characters in 法律, law, so my first impression was, that these people probably have very strict rules and are law abiders
Britain/UK 英国 - 英 is one of the characters in 英雄, hero, so I just imagine British people like to help the innocent (this was before I learned about British colonialism lol, but I guess the 英 character still sort of partly relevent, as in they view themselves as “hero”, aka: they interfere with other’s countries bussiness a lot)
Germany 德国 - 德 is one of the characters in 道德, morality, so I had a subconcious belief they were very moral people. I didn’t even know about the holocaust yet. 💀
Mexico 墨西哥 - 墨 is ink, 哥 is brother, so I though these are dark-skinned people that value brotherhood, masculinity.
South Korea 韩国 - 韩 sounds like 寒, so I just assumed it was a very cold country (isn’t it tho?) Oh BTW, I was in South Korea… in the airport waiting for a transfer flight, never actually entered the country for real, that was 15 years go, the closest I’ve ever been to South Korea. Wanna go there someday, see the snow (cuz its a 寒国 “cold country” remember xD)
Japan 日本 - 日 is the sun, so I thought it gets like very sunny or something
These are the few on the top of my head. You can mention any below and I can tell you what my “subconcious feel” about the name is.
Sorry man you are probably the only one in a billion native Chinese speakers that make those connections directly, please don’t make it sound like your personal shower thought apply to everyone else.
Normal native Chinese speakers learned immediately that characters used in every single country names are, as defined by “transliterate”, purely based on pronunciation, and have absolutely nothing to do with the meaning of the characters.
So native speakers are trained to, and very good at, completely ignore the meaning of separate characters in transliterate words.
I personally have never ever think of American as “beautiful”, or France as “lawful” since childhood. Thinking South Korea as “cold” just because “韓” sounds like “寒” is definitely the most hilariously ridiculous connection that I have every heard in my entire life.
I have also never heard of any native Chinese speaker playing these mental gymnastics for country name, or any transliterate word. Never ever read a single sentence that put Mexico and dark skinned people together, or any of those ridiculous examples. Not in real life, not on TV, not in the books, or on the vast Internet.
Note that there IS some strong propaganda going on when government choose the characters of official transliterate country names. Also there are lots of researches around this subject about how these characters affect people’s impression of various things.
It’s just that in real life, the effect of these country name propaganda on people’s impression, is just miniscule and purely subconscious. So in my entire life I have never seen anyone, any material, that speak those impression out loud, so directly, exactly as government wanted, like this shower thought did.
Either OP is a truly unique one in a billion snowflake, or this whole thing is yet another AI generated hallucinating horse shit. That Mexico impression is so, so hilarious that I start to admire the creativity in this post.
Regardless, it’s too late now. This misinformation has already reached maybe thousands of people, and they are all curious about what their country’s characters mean in Chinese. They will never see my comment, and continue to live with this ridiculous impression of general Chinese speakers, for the rest of their life.
Do you not know what subconscious means?
Lol man I major in psychology and I guarantee you these are not how subconscious work at all, and that’s part of the reason why I find this post ridiculous:
Subconscious is all just very vague feelings, good/bad, like/dislike, warm/cold. “people probably have very strict rules and are law abiders” is way too explicit as a subconscious thought.
And you are not supposed to tell what you subconsciously think anyway. That’s why it is called "sub"conscious. They’ll only surface through well conducted psychology research and statistics.
If a researcher ask you “what are you thinking subconsciously?”, it would be a pretty stupid psychology research.
Bro, not everything is AI, I’m just an introvert that think about things alot.
And it’s not like I seriously think that Japan magically hides the sun inside their island because if the 日 character, its a subconcious impression because my brian automatically make that connection, so its like I just make jokes to my dad like “is it really warn in Japan”
Its kinda like “Iceland”, like: “hey I bet there’s a lot of ice on that island”
If I were still in China, and like someone were to ask me about my impressions of a country, and I don’t have any info, I’d just say that I’ve never been there and never heard of anything about it, not actually say outloud the subconcious feeling about the name of the country.
Also, kid-me think really weirdly.
Also how the fuck is it misinformation?
If I said: “Native English speakers probably think Iceland has a lot of Ice” or “Native English speakers probably think Greenland has a lot of grass”, is that really “misinformation”
Jesus fucking christ, why is every lemming so fucking hostile for no fucking reason.
I like what you are doing with this post and appreciate it.
I hope you’ll see the contradiction between these lines someday. If you know that you think “weirdly” as a kid, that, by definition, means those ideas don’t apply to other native speakers, does that make sense to you?
So when your title make it sounds like some verified scientific research:
That’s what I would call misinformation. And that’s what rub me the wrong way.
Now from your reply I can see why you phrase your title that way. It’s not even for clicks. You really do believe the equation:
because: kid-you think…
and: You are a native speaker
equals: Native speakers think…
I wouldn’t mind if what kid-you think is some what close to reality.
I won’t even bat an eye if your title says it’s just your personal ideas from childhood. I’ll 100% find it adorable.
What I couldn’t stand is that you put your childish ideas, which is light years away from how others think, into every native speakers mouth, make it sounds like some interesting facts about Chinese people, and people are buying it without second thought. That make me feel violated, and my whole cultural being misrepresented.
You are still free to prove me wrong, that the majority native speakers do have these impression around country names, by start doing some research now. But we already know what makes you make those generalized claim in the post title, is all just kid’s weird ideas.
Side note: There’s one single comment in the whole thread that disagree with you and you are like:
Maybe online forum is not for you.
You seem mad at something…
I hate people state things about me and my people that’s ridiculously untrue as facts. Did I not make it clear in previous comment?
We’re not all hostile, but that one sure is acting like you pissed in his cereal.
PsychoWiz once told me that the scientific names of organisms are just letters and sounds, and have no bearing on physical traits or where the species was found. They hate linguistics and call it witchcraft.
Why is this is all too common?
So many commenters come at you like you owe them money for the stupidest inconsequential shit on Earth.
“Well ackshually…” stfu it was a joke, a subjective observation, someone sharing their experience, a different take. Whatever you want to call it, we don’t need your lemmsplaining when you missed the point, random commenter on a mission.
We have some serious cynics who think everyone else is stupid who deserve the disrespect and it really irks me.
/rant
Bro it ain’t that serious man
I think your perspective and critique is valid and interesting but it can be helpful to assume the best in people, especially when giving a critique.
In my experience, kids (and adults) love the fact that Iceland is greener and Greenland is icier, so it’s not surprising to me that other languages have similar odd names. It’s not surprising to me that some people would have a biased opinion of a place due to an odd name, but like Iceland I expect many know much more about a country than just the name and thus the name doesn’t hold much weight.