British/English/Scottish

[Liebkuchen]

I have a query about nationality and Chinese:

Many years ago in my evening class in England, our Chinese tutor was telling us our nationalities in Chinese.

Obviously, the English students were 英国人. I say Scottish unless its something related to my passport but was also told I'm 英国人which is fair enough.

But I've recently discovered (to my suprise) that you can be 苏格兰人(?)

In China, would I/should I ever use 苏格兰人 in conversation? How obscure is it to your average Chinese?

Its not a particularly political description on my part- more force of habit.

[roddy]

I tend to stick to 英国人 as you can very often find yourself explaining the

every time you take a taxi. If it's someone I'm likely to get to know, rather than a taxi driver, then I might be more specific.

I think it must be covered a bit on the Chinese geography curriculum as you'll get people reciting the Chinese names for England, Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the same voice I use for my five times table, but understanding is often hazy and you get questions about whether or not you speak English, etc. Which is fair enough, but you might not want to do it every day.

[xianhua]

Obviously, the English students were 英国人

The Scottish, Welsh and Irish* students would also be classed as 英国人 since the term can be best translated as 'British'.

* Citizens from Northern Ireland may hold either British or Irish nationality.

[rob07]

As said above, 英国 means Britain. If you want to refer to England specifically, it is better to use 英格兰. As an alternative to 英国人, try introducing yourself as a 什么格兰人 ;) .

Yes, Northern Ireland is part of the UK, but most Irish people are definitely not 英国人. Wars were fought over that.

[skylee]

I guess you can use it when you discuss football (soccer) with Chinese.

[Hugh]

I find the confusion about Scotland / England / Britain etc quite useful. Sometimes I say I'm Scottish (I'm English) and that we don't speak English just to encourage people to speak with me in Chinese. I used to just use some random nationality for this, but that backfired when people responded in the language of that nationality. I've yet to meet someone that replied in Scots Gaelic

[Liebkuchen]

My own plan had to be to claim Norwegian-ness to dodge English- but I can speak a couple of completely unrelated sentences in Gaelic if I went down that route and ever got challenged Whether they're intelligable to an actual Gaelic speaker is another matter...

I once went to Cincinnati and a young sales assistant heard my accent and asked where I was from. "Scotland". "Say, isn't that near France?" I guess it could have been worse.

[liuzhou]

I once went to Cincinnati and a young sales assistant heard my accent and asked where I was from. "Scotland". "Say, isn't that near France?"

Well, it's a lot nearer to France than it is to Cincinnati!

I use Icelandic. In 15 years I've never met anyone Chinese who speaks Icelandic (neither do I). In fact, I haven't met many Icelanders who speak Icelandic.

[bad_dream_house]

I always introduced myself as 苏格兰人 while in China, unless dealing with officialdom, and found that most people were fairly familiar with the country and its relation to the United Kingdom (possibly due to the popularity of Braveheart and the legendary Stephen Hendry etc). Although I do remember a friend getting a few blank stares when stating he was from 威尔士.

When in America on the other hand...