第715期:Countries United

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Yuri: So, Shirley, we were talking about politics. How is the situation in your country?

Shirley: Well, you know I'm pretty much an on-the-fence kind of person and politics is not my forte[/ˈfɔːr.teɪ/,強項，特長]. It's not something I like to get into a conversation about, so I'll just change the subject if that's alright. I'd like to tell you a bit about the United Kingdom. You know, I'm from Scotland and, you know, where is Scotland. I get this question so often. Is that in Norway? Is it a region of England?So just to clarify, it's a bit complicated, but in the United Kingdom - the U.K - we have Scotland, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and then people know Great Britain.

Yuri: Yes, so I do.

Shirley: Great Britain is Scotland, England, and Wales. To give the country it's the full title, it's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That's the full title for the U.K. or Great Britain or GB, or England is just one country within four that are united. It sounds really complicated.

Yuri: Right, it's the biggest one right?

Shirley: England is the biggest country with a population of forty million. Scotland's about five million. Now, I correct myself. England is I think 49 million. Wales is about two million. Northern Ireland about two or three million, so in total the whole of the United Kingdom is about sixty million population.How did that come about? Go back three hundred years or more even. England and Wales united over three hundred years ago and then Scotland was invited to join the union between England and Wales. Scotland agreed with actually many conditions. For example, one of the conditions was the money, the value of the pound. In Scotland, we have the Bank of Scotland pounds, and in England, it's Bank of England pounds. It's all the same sterling[/ˈstɝː.lɪŋ/,英鎊（英國貨幣）] currency of the U.K. And it's very difficult in England to spend any money that's got Bank of Scotland written on it, even though it's all the same money. Anyway, that's another issue.So, yeah, three hundred years ago, Scotland joined the union between England and Wales to become Great Britain and then I think early in the 1800's that's when Ireland joined. Of course, now it's just Northern Ireland, and there's other history related to that. We could go on all day talking about how it became Northern Ireland. So yeah, so when people think of the U.K., they generally think the U.K. is England, but it's actually four countries