Kotoba no Hibiki

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How to write it？

アメリカ、亜米利加あめりか、米国べいこく、米べい

When writing America in Japanese, You can use either katakana or kanji.
We rarely use hiragana except in papers aimed at children.

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Advanced Tips

Why 米国べいこく?

In Japanese, we sometimes use one or two kanji, which is a combination of a certain kanji + 国くに.

We usually write foreign countries in katakana, but we also write them in kanji only.
These kanji usually have a similar sound to the original pronunciation.

And we choose one of the kanji, usually choose the first kanji.
Adding 国くに makes the contract version for the kanji name of the foreign country.

So for America we can choose 亜あ, but in reality we use 米べい.
There may be many reasons, but I will introduce two famous ones.

1. Because the strongest accent of America is ‘me’, which is 米め of 亜米利加あめりか.
2. Because 亜あ is familiar to the kanji that represent of Asia.

Other examples

England　イギリス　英吉利いぎりす　英国えいこく

Germany（Deutschland）　ドイツ　独逸どいつ　独どく国くこく

Australia　オーストラリア　濠太剌利おーすとらりあ　濠ごう州しゅう

France 　フランス　仏蘭西ふらんす　仏国ふつこく

Europe　ヨーロッパ　欧羅巴よーろっぱ　欧州おうしゅう