Are You Smarter Than an (Italian) 5th Grader?
Posted on: Aug 17, 2009Oh, really?
If so, then tell me … how many continents are there?
If you said seven, you are wrong!
By talian fifth grade standards, that is.
This debate recently arose when I asked my husband why he-and his fellow paesani-insist on referring to people from Argentina, Canada, Brazil, etc., etc. as “Americans.”
“Argentinians and Americans come from two different countries, you know,” I told him. “Why does everyone mix this up?”
“Well you are all from the Americas … the same continent,” he said. “Close enough.”
“It is not the same continent,” I began …
“Cherrrrrye,” my father-in-law cut in, “There are five continents …”
Whoa!
It was my turn to interrupt.
Our debate ensued with his father bulking “the Americas” together and insisting Antarctica was just ice, and as such, does not constitute a continent.
Peppe agreed.
Oh Dio Mio!
“How can I live in this country?” I thought. “They don’t even know how many continents there are!”
So we took our argument to the Internet.
And it seems … we were both right.
Americans-whoever that may be-are taught there are seven continents.
North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Antarctica and Australia
Italians are taught there are five.
America, Europe, Asia, Oceania and Africa
And I didn’t even know this was up for debate. In fact, if you Google “how many continents are there” you’ll see quite the discussion.
So there you have it … if you ever find yourself with an invitation to the game show, you’ll be prepared and you’ll know how to answer the question … Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader!
Welcome to the most heated debate between Americans and Europeans!
It’s not just Italy that supports the 5 continents-rule. It’s a very Europe vs. US argument. Quite entertaining, if you manage to remain detached. It seems that’s a very hard topic to feel detached about, as “I am right, and THEY are obviously wrong!” seems to be the hardest obstacle to overcome!
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I have to agree, it was hard for me to swallow that, as well. I mean, I thought it was common knowledge, you know, like the earth is round.
Well I am going to throw a new one at you. I just googled and this is what I came up with, and it was the first one on the list……
This web page says SIX or Seven ….
http://geography.about.com/od/learnabouttheearth/qt/qzcontinents.htm
I am just wondering what search engine you used, I cannot find one link to 5 continents …but I found this and it goes down to 4……..
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070714014445AAdJI1T
So so far, I have found 4, 6, or 7 continents…sorry to confuse the matter even further.
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No worries! I used Google, but I Googled it in Italian to see what the Italians would get! I am pretty sure I also saw it in English, though…
Fascinating! I’ve never heard of this before.
I remember being shocked when I was teaching English in Hungary, that my students told me that the U.S. had 52 states (as their geography teacher had drilled into them). My protests that there were 50 did not penetrate. “But what about Puerto Rico and Hawaii?” they would retort (I never did figure out what was the 52nd state). I tried to explain to them there were 50, and it was just one of those things that was true, like Budapest was the capital of Hungary, but they didn’t believe me for a minute!
That is crazy funny! ha
Wow! I had no idea about this, but I could see it leading to exactly the same type of debate. Thanks for the heads up!
Prego! Let me know how it goes if you bring it up.
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Now this is strange, because the other day I was chatting, the topic came up, and they listed a whole load of continents. Being tired I didn’t query it, but thought there were too many. However, having read your post and checked UK national curriculum, in UK it’s 7, so I guess I was wrong.
Interesting … wonder what they mentioned!
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It’s not just Italian, many Spanish speakers would say “America” to refer to the Americas. Strangely enough Brazilians don’t do this and many say “americanos” to refer to citizens of the states.
Why are North and South America separated? And Europe and Asia? If the definition of a continent is somewhat political or cultural, then Antartica really is just a big lump of ice! 
In English the standard has leant towards saying America for the states simply because of American’s use of it, and frankly because of American’s self importance!! It’s like they won’t even acknowledge all the other countries as being in “America”. Wikipedia agrees that even in English the use could mean either.
English speakers going to “America” would usually be going to the states (or Canada of course) and not a country that speaks Spanish or Portuguese. Italians have famously emigrated to a lot of South American countries (*especially* Argentina and a lot to Brazil too). America is everything west of the Atlantic; the New World etc.
What I don’t get about the 7 continent system… is where the hell is Central America?? Where is Guatemala in your system?
Also, when the term America was first ever used… didn’t Columbus not even actually ever set food in “America”?? (i.e. USA)
For me there are 5 OR LESS continents
Hey Benny. I don’t see Americans as not acknowledging others as being part of the American continent, but we are the Unites States of America. What are we supposed to call ourselves? United Statizens?
As I told my husband, they make a distinction of countries when they talk about themselves or others. They don’t say “I am European” they say they are “Italian.” And, LOL at your Central America question. I have actually wondered the same thing. It is North America, fwiw, which extends down as far south as Panama. This is just a crazy debate, though. I thought it was scientific proof (of any of the systems).
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I had no idea!
Interesting, huh?
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Isn’t the number of continents based on the number of continental plates? But I don’t remember how many plates there are! But I thought it was 6 — Europe and Asia were on the same one, but the Americas were separate.
You’d think it would be something scientific like that, wouldn’t you?
We actually DO say something like “United Statizen” in other languages
Spanish for example is “estadounidense”, because an “americano” is anyone from that entire chunk of the world. This is an issue with English (and some languages that adopt English’s use of words). If the USA were less important to the English speaking world, or less politically important, then we would definitely have given you some similar adjective 
In the mean time I usually just say “yank(y)” much to my American friends’ annoyance!! 
No but honestly, I personally use work-arounds. The girl-from-the-states etc. Cumbersome, but luckily for me I almost never speak English so I don’t have this problem 
Technically, this month neither should you, right? 
I know! It was so hard this morning-we have a German guest at our B&B who doesn’t speak Italian so for work, I had to break out the mother tongue! I plan to write a follow-up post about how it is going. Also, I’ve heard other English speakers say “Yankee.” I always think it is cute! Then again-I’m from Texas and being called a “yankee” is a novelty for me.
Thanks for the info on how other languages refer to Americans. Very interesting. 
Benny the Irish polyglot´s last blog ..Summary of month 2: on the final dash to see if I make it to fluency!
hilarious – I had no idea! They should make that a Trivial Pursuit question….
They should-totally!
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Interesting debate. I had no idea. We are taught 5 in the UK too. Your argument re. Argentina and America doesn’t hold up: You list Europe as a continent (as we do) but Italy and England are two different countries also!
No, I meant people here call people from Argentina,”Americans.” That would be like calling Italians “English” because they are from the same continent.
Love this. Reminds me a bit of my father-in-law who gets red-in-the-face angry if you mention that the Vikings may have come to the Americas before Columbus. LOL!!
Still..yeah…kinda scary!
Ha. That is funny.
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Hello Cherrye!
There are a lot of different assessments about that around the World. The number of continents varies between five and seven.
For example, I’m paraguayan, and in all Latin America we study the “America” like a continent. Not the “Americas”, but America. So, you’ll ask me: “How do you call us? United Statizens?” Well, I don’t know if the word “statizens” exists, but… It’s similar. I will explain. In spanish, we call your country “Estados Unidos de América” (or EUA or E.E.U.U.). So, people coming from EUA are called “estadounidenses”.
First, we must know which one is oldest. I’m referring to the name “America”. We know that the the first denomination of the continent America happened in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller in his work called Cosmographiae introductio. You can see that here (near the brazilian territory): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/UniversalisCosmographia.jpg
So, we have first the continent America and then the term America to designate a country. But, became common uses the term “americans” to designate a person came from USA. It’s not wrong. I will call you “american”, without problem.
And now… finally, I’ll write about the number of continents. I would like to be a universal knowledge, but it doesn’t. So, I just send the link of the continental composition by the United Nations: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm
And we see five continents: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
Apologies for my english, my italian is better but your site is all in english, so I decided to write in english.
PS.: Il tuo sorriso é bellissimo
Ma, grazie! This is so comprehensive. Thank you so much.
Oh lordie – I just saw this. Please, for the sake of the future Peppino, seven (7) seven (7).
Ha, it was such an hysterical lunch-time conversation when we learned about “our” differences!