Sprechen Sie Deutschland?

At my previous job, I was once having a conversation in English with a francophone co-worker, and he mentioned something about "speaking Germany". I started laughing. Not at his mistake, but because I always do the same thing in French: I confuse the words "Allemand" (Germany) with "allemagne" (German). When I quickly reassured him that I wasn't laughing at him but at the apparent universality of this error, he just stared at me. "You mean there are two words?"

So the other day it occurred to me to Google the phrase "speak Germany" and see what came up. Turns out a lot of people seem to make that error. :)

If you arrived here at my blog trying to find a solution to this problem, Germany is the place, and German is the adjective and the language.

Pour les francophones, "Germany" est le pays, parce que l'on peut y aller.