Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 August 1

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August 1

Apartments

In the United States, the term is apartment. In the UK, the term is flat. In Australia, the term is unit. An American apartment is rented living space, and a condo is owned living space. Okay, so how does one describe an owned "apartment/flat/unit" in China? The living area is very much like an apartment, but it is owned by the family. Not sure if I should use "ownership" there, since China in the 20th century was very Communist. Maybe I should say that the living space belongs to the family? This type of housing was popular during the 20th century, I think. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 02:23, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

It depends on which variety of English you use for your text, not where the building is located. --84.57.192.255 (talk) 12:15, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Totally agree with 84., an American that comes back from Sydney would say to his friends "I was renting an apartment there for 6 months". It is definitely not about the location of the place but the dialect that the speaker chooses. --Lgriot (talk) 12:23, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Per 84.57, this is a linguistic concern, not a geographical one; that is someone speaking British English would call such a housing situation a "flat" regardless of whether or not it was in London or New York or Beijing. --Jayron32 12:24, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Jayron. Separately, OP's first statement is strangely categorical. In the UK, both "flat" and "apartment" are widely used, and in Australia, "unit", "flat" or "apartment" are all widely used.

Also, I am fairly familiar with different kinds of housing arrangements in China, and I have no idea what the OP is talking about with "the living area is owned by the family". Are living rooms owned by the state where the OP comes form? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:01, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Uh, here in USA, an apartment is not typically owned by the family living there. (Unlike a condo, where the "living area" is usually owned by the resident, even if they don't own the building as a whole.) ApLundell (talk) 18:27, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

A third common USA arrangement not yet (I think) mentioned is the "co-op" where the tenants collectively own the building. This is in distinction to the condominium, where the tenants own the unit they live in (the condominium association manages the commons area), and a rental, where the tenants own no real estate interest in their dwelling. - Nunh-huh 18:43, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, so what are the ownership/rental arrangements like in apartments in the US? Is the point that they are exclusively rented out by the owner of the building and never sold individually? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:00, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I spoke imprecisely, I explain below. ApLundell (talk) 15:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

• Apartment, flat and unit are used in New Zealand with some differences that may also apply in Britain or Commonwealth countries.
• Apartment: usually used to describe a spacious upmarket dwelling that is in a building with others; that is, they are all under the same roof; they usually have a common entranceway; they are usually leased or owner-occupied, but may be rented
• Flat: this is the term for a rented accommodation; that's what flat means; flats may be standalone, joined, located in the same building with others under the same roof, or even a single room of a full size house
• Unit: this is a dwelling that is rented or owner-occupied:
  • in a building with others and they share a common entrance
  • attached to another by a concrete block wall that divides them off totally from each other; often up to 6 or 8 of these are joined lengthwise with a common driveway extending from the street
  • a standalone dwelling that is built in the grounds of a (usually larger) already existing house; if rent is paid, it is usually to the owner-occupier of the house; sometimes the unit is occupied by a family member

• There may be some variation, and not all readers will agree, but the main difference is that a flat is always rented, unlike the other two. Akld guy (talk) 04:05, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's the same in Australia - or at least in Sydney. If there is any difference between "unit", "flat" and "apartment", it is that "flats" tend to be more down-market, in a low-rise building without a concierge, whereas "apartments" tend to be more up-market, sometimes in a high-rise building and with services such as a concierge. "Units" encompass the whole spectrum. None of flats, units or apartments are necessarily all owned or all rented.

Adjoining but separate dwellings in a complex are called "villas" if single storey, "townhouses" if two storey.

A standalone dwelling built in the grounds of an existing house could be called a "granny flat". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:00, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Agree with apartments being upmarket, which is exactly what I said. Granny flat (with your definition) is used here too; I wanted to add it but couldn't find a reference. Akld guy (talk) 11:16, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Looking at "granny flats" online, it seems that there is an alternative use which is a self contained space that is not structurally separated from the main house. However, the use I am familiar with and I think you are too is reflected in this article. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Similar in the UK, a flat is basic accommodation while "apartment" is usually prefixed with "luxury". [1] Alansplodge (talk) 11:56, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I think that a better way of interpreting this data might be: "flat" is used when the intended audience is entirely British, "apartment" is used when the estate agent is also marketing the property worldwide (which is generally the case for high-end properties in the UK). Matt's talk 12:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

• As earlier editors said, wthe answer to this depends on the English variant used by the speaker. However, in Beijing and Shanghai, the numerical predominance of North Americans means the usual term is "apartment" in most multinational settings. For example, City Weekend is an expat magazine that has historically had many journalists from British English backgrounds. Their site has 516 instances of "renting an apartment" and 61 instances of "renting a flat". I would expect it to be different in Guangdong, because the influence of Hong Kong (where British English is the official variant), but I don't have a source to support that. Matt's talk 12:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

At least in mainland China, there simply isn't a single local version of English, people speak whatever version of English is most suitable to the context. The links you cited show the use of "apartment", but that is more likely to be due to the type of property in question, rather than because of American influence. If you look at ads for similar kinds of properties on a British real estate website, you are also likely to see that the kind of newbuild highrise flats/apartments that are common in China are often billed as apartments: see e.g. this search result for flats/apartments in an area of London that has a lot of them.

Anyway, if I have understood a comment above correctly, US "apartments" are never sold individually, whereas the highrise flats/apartments that are commonly seen in China almost always are, so "apartment" would be used in the British, not the US, sense in the links you cited. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Apartments are sold in the U.S. The term "condominium" refers to a particular nature of ownership agreement, but condos can be single family homes, townhomes, or apartments. Likewise, an apartment can be owned or rented under a variety of frameworks. To say "own" or "buy" in connection to an apartment is not uncommon, and perfectly cromulent in USENG. What you're confusing is Housing tenure, which refers to the exact nature of the rental/ownership agreement on a property, and the organization of the housing units themselves. --Jayron32 14:43, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

I get the concepts, what's confusing me is @ApLundell:'s post above: "Uh, here in USA, an apartment is not typically owned by the family living there. (Unlike a condo, where the "living area" is usually owned by the resident, even if they don't own the building as a whole.)" (emphasis mine), which suggests a dichotomy in USENG between condo and apartment in terms of tenure. It sounded like "apartment" is only used for rented accommodation whereas separately-owned apartments are called "condos". Is that incorrect or have I misunderstood User:ApLundell's comment? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:49, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

America is a diverse place with many different local dialects. There are stricter definitions in formal usage (such as real-estate law) than there would be in common use. ApLundell may be speaking honestly about word usage in his dialect; in that case his response is not wrong (for the dialect he speaks), however the existence of fully detached single-family homes in condominium developments speaks to the need to draw a distinction between architecture and tenure. --Jayron32 10:59, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I guess I should have been more precise. It's true that in formal language "apartment" technically refers to dwelling style, not the legal arrangement. But in common usage, at least here in the North-East USA, "Apartment" is a rental, and condos are never refereed to as "apartments" even when they're technically that style of dwelling. If you had a condo that was apartment-style and referred to it as "my apartment", people would be likely to say "Oh, I thought you had a condo?".

In either case, it's pretty rare for the dwelling to be owned by the state. Even low-income housing tends to be privately owned. ApLundell (talk) 14:56, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)In Britain, the term "flat" indicates that the accommodation is on one floor. If it contains an internal staircase it is a "maisonette". 81.148.156.245 (talk) 14:49, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

The (ridiculous) new term for a (one-floor) flat in the "London Prime" market is "lateral apartment". In the same same market maisonettes are called "duplexes" or (if three floors) "triplexes". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:51, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

In upmarket areas they're called "duplices" and "triplices".  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:57, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I took issue with the very first sentence posed by the OP, where it was said that apartment is the US term and flat is the British term. It's not as simple as that. They have quite different meanings. Akld guy (talk) 21:53, 2 August 2017 (UTC)