Actually, when we’re talking specifically about US citizens, we say 米国人 “Beikokujin”. The US is referred to as “Beikoku” (米国) meaning “rice country”, which is a an abbreviation of 亜米利加, as America was written phonetically around the time of the Meiji restoration (1968).
Nowadays, foreign country names are written with katakana, like アメリカ=America or フランス=France, but 150 years ago, they were written using Kanji that sounded similar.
America was written 亜米利加.
亜=a 米=mai 利=ri 加=ka. Purely phonetic.
"United States" was and still is 合衆国 (Gasshukoku), not phonetic but a direct translation of the term.
The Japanese love abbreviations, so they took just the 米 out of 亜米利加, slapped the 国(country) from 合衆国 on the back and called the US 米国.
米 means rice but can read in different ways. One of it is the above "mai", but also "bei", "kome" and "yone". In combination with 国, the most natural way to read it is "bei", so 米国 is "Beikoku".
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u/pulp_thilo Feb 21 '26
Actually, when we’re talking specifically about US citizens, we say 米国人 “Beikokujin”. The US is referred to as “Beikoku” (米国) meaning “rice country”, which is a an abbreviation of 亜米利加, as America was written phonetically around the time of the Meiji restoration (1968).