Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under The Microscope. Hi, 安澜.

Hi, lulu. Hi, everyone.

So, 安澜, can I propose a topic?

Of course.

The other day, during my live stream, you know, watching TV shows.

Oh, yes.

我们之前有一次那个看剧解梗的直播, 你知道吧? 然后我们就看了一个剧叫Ted Lasso.

I love Ted Lasso.

《足球教练》这个剧. It is about an American football coach going to coach a football team in the UK.

Yeah.

So, (I’m) not going into details but one of the things that we've noticed, because there's obviously a lot of cross cultural misunderstanding thing.

Yeah.

There was this particular part where Ted, the American guy got really confused about all these names for Britain or like people's like "oh, yeah, is that Wales, is that another country?"

It does get confusing.

Yeah, because when you meet英国人, sometimes they say "I'm from the UK". Sometimes they say "I'm British", sometimes they say "I'm from England".

Yeah.

So, I thought today let's just get that sorted out.

Yep. There's lots of different names for the UK, but first of all, let's start with the official name. So this is the name that's on my passport.

That's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Yes. So the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland or the UK or the United Kingdom.

You know, when I was a student when I was learning about this full name. And I just feel like Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It's just like it's an added on.

A little bit, yeah. That's because Great Britain is the name of the island that includes England, Scotland and Wales, so that whole island is known as Great Britain.

I see.

A lot of people would say "who would call their country great?", but I think here great is not really saying great, or the country is grand, but it's a geographical thing that you do hear this. 地理上很多地方叫大什么的都是用的great.

Yeah. So it's basically here it means bigger.

So for example, London, you have central London and you have greater London.

Yeah. It doesn't mean they're more grand, it just means this is bigger.

It's bigger. Yeah. Great Britain is the name of the biggest island, but if you want to talk about the geographic name, then that's the British Isles.

British Isles, 就是英伦，就是群岛的意思，different islands, 我们说英伦三岛.

是 three isles, or not?

No, there's actually lots and lots of different islands.

Okay.

It's particularly up in Scotland. You have lots of islands particularly in Scotland, they are all part of the British Isles, including island.

So we call it British Isles but this is only a geographic name. This is not about government or nations.

Because Ireland is an independent country.

It's an independent country. Yeah.

I see, so let's start with England.

Yeah.

When someone says "I'm from England" like do you ever say that?

Yeah, I would say "I'm from England" or I would say "I'm from the UK".

What is the difference?

Well. England is part of the UK, so my passport, my citizenship is British, so I am British by citizenship. But if you're talking about ethnicity, then you are English.

I see, I know you guys have England, Scotland and Wales有英格兰、苏格兰、威尔士，是吧?

Yeah.

So do you think when someone says "I'm from England", they are trying to say specifically that I'm not from Scotland or Wales?

Yeah, it's not because they hate Welsh or Scottish people. It's a way of describing your ethnicity, describing the area in particular you were born in.

But what about Scots and Welsh people, if they're asked, would they say "I'm from the UK" or do you think they usually would say "I'm from Scotland." "I'm from Welsh."

Generally, in my experience, Scottish people and Welsh people will say "I'm Welsh" or "I'm Scottish".

I see, interesting. They wouldn't say "I'm from the UK."

Some might, some mightn’t, but generally in my experience, Welsh people Scottish people are very patriotic, they're very proud of their own roots.

Can you actually use patriotic? Because I thought patriotic is more 爱国, for example I'm Chinese, I love China, I love my motherland.

Yeah. But if they say I'm Scottish, I'm Welsh, I'm patriotic, wouldn't that be patriotic towards the UK?

No, not necessarily.

Okay.

Remember the name of the UK is the United Kingdom. So they are different nations come together. So Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland have their own government, they have their own parliaments.

They have their own flags.

They have their own flags, they even have their own anthems.

Mhm. So this is very different, from a Chinese, modern Chinese perspective this is a bit harder to understand.

Yeah.

So coming back to England, 我们都说英格兰英格兰, why are you guys called England?

Well. It comes from the Angles. So the Angles were a tribe that came from northern Germany and southern Denmark. So, England is actually Angle-land, the land of the Angles.

Is it when they say Anglo Saxon就是所谓盎撒人，盎格鲁-撒克逊? So Anglo, like Angles.

Yeah. So for example, in French, the word for England is "Angleterre".

Still, Angle’s land.

Yeah, the land of the Angles.

I see, what are the names?

There's a few different names. So one name you might see is Albion.

Very sort of old and historical like.

Very old, historical, normally used in poetry. No one really knows where it comes from. It either comes from the Latin word “albus”, which means white, because of the white cliffs Dover.

Okay.

If you go to Dover, which is the closest port to France, it's famous for white cliffs.

就是那个白色的悬崖, Albion.

Well, the reason why I know the word "Albion" is because there's a famous Japanese cosmetic brand called Albion that I often use.

Yeah.

And Albion, I'm assuming they use Albion, because it's a lot of like whitening cream and all that.

Well, yeah probably.

They use the meaning of white.

Yeah.

Or it could come from the old Celtic worth of Britain. So Albion is just normally used in poetry and old literature. So it's just another way of saying Britain.

I see, Albion, A-l-b-i-o-n.

That's right.