实战口语情景对话：Countries United 联合王国

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

尤里：雪莉，我们来谈谈政治。你们国家的政治环境怎么样?

Shirley: Well, you know I'm pretty much an on-the-fence kind of person and politics is not my forte. 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.

雪莉：你知道我是一个非常中立的人，政治不是我的专长。这是我不太想聊的话题，如果可以的话我想改变一下谈话主题。我想和你说说联合王国。我来自苏格兰，你知道苏格兰在哪里吗?经常有人问我这个问题，是在挪威吗?是英格兰的一个地区吗?要想说清楚可能有点儿复杂，联合王国包括苏格兰、英格兰、威尔士和北爱尔兰，一般人们都知道大不列颠。

Yuri: Yes, so I do.

尤里：对，我也是。

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

雪莉：大不列颠包括苏格兰、英格兰和威尔士。所以国家的全称是大不列颠及爱尔兰联合王国。这是英国或者说大不列颠的全称，英格兰只是四个联合王国的其中一个。听起来是有点儿复杂。

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

尤里：好，英格兰是最大的，对吧?

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 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.

雪莉：英格兰是最大的王国，人口有4000万。苏格兰有500万人口。我要纠正一下，我想英格兰的人口大概是4900万。威尔士的人口约为200万。北爱尔兰的人口为200万或300万，所以联合王国的总人口约有6000万人。联合王国是怎么形成的?这要追溯至300年前，甚至是更久之前。英格兰和威尔士在300年前合并，然后苏格兰加入英格兰和威尔士的合并王国。苏格兰同意了许多条件。其中一个条件是货币，英镑的价值。我们苏格兰用的是苏格兰银行发行的英磅，而英格兰用的是英格兰银行发行的英镑。在英国这两种英镑的汇率是一样的。不过很难在英格兰使用苏格兰银行发行的英镑，虽然是同一种货币。这是另一个问题。300年前，苏格兰加入了英格兰和威尔士的合并王国，组成大不列颠，然后大概在19世纪早期，爱尔兰加入进来。现在只是北爱尔兰，这是另一部分历史。如果要讲清楚为什么现在只是北爱尔兰在联合王国里，那我们可能得说上一整天了。当提到英国时，人们一般认为英国就是英格兰，但其实一共有四个国家。