Treating countries names?

[hamza]

how can I treat countries names when i relat to them?
can i say for example " Japan make(s) Cars " with "s" at the end of the verb or not,
and "can I use "has" or "have" , "it" or "she" (in my language we use "she" as if we relat to a female name).

[Alan]

Hi,

Usually we regard the country as singular and female. We can say: Germany is famous for her car manufacture. It would also be possible to say: its car manufacture but it is almost always singular.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
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[hamza]

what a quick answer!

thank you very much Alan
it was my first quistion
and it is honor to me to get help from you and the team of English language experts here ,
and I'm very lucky person to be a member in this forum.

thank you again,and good bye.

[Jamie (K)]

[Torsten]

My it's a question of generation. I have an audio book by Napoleon Hill on which he refers to Great Britain as "she".
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Yankee]

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Hasn't Napoleon Hill been dead for nearly 40 years, Torsten?
Somehow I have a feeling that Hamza's question was primarily focused on current usage.

To me, Jamie's comment seemed to be a valid generalization about current English usage on the American side of the pond.
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Amy
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ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English