I’m a bit confused by the multiple translations of 英国. According to the vocab page, it can refer to both England and the UK. A Scottish person might be a bit confused about how to introduce themselves, being British but not English. Is there just no distinction between the UK and England in Japanese discourse?
It’s the same for イギリス人, which can mean both English person and British person.
I think it’s because the word for United Kingdom is so large that Japanese people just don’t bother to use it, instead opting for the easier “England” variation to generally mean either the UK or specifically England. You can always specify if you are Scottish, Welsh or Irish though!
I think like most places though, Japanese people are a bit fuzzy on the difference between the UK and England.
I’ve seen アイルアンド系イギリス人 used to describe an Irish person.
According to Goo, 英国 means イギリスのこと. So then checking イギリス, it seems (from what I understand) to be giving a standard definition of United Kingdom and includes Scotland. Particularly, this:
のち、ウェールズ・スコットランド・アイルランドを併合。
Donald Trump was similarly confused last week.
英国 is a bit formal. イギリス is the norm. I’d go with that unless you specifically want to say Scotland/Scottish in which case it’s スコットランド or スコットランド人 - just like the football team.
We have UK passports, we might say Britain or Great Britain, call ourselves British or by our specific country if we so wish. If someone needs to know more they’ll ask.
Japanese people use it for all of Britain and generally don’t make the distinction between England, Scotland, Wales and NI.
Yeah, I gave up long ago trying to police other people’s usage of “UK” and “England”. Even we mix them up sometimes.
So basically go for イギリス人 if you’re English, and スコットランド人 if you’re Scottish etc.
I remember I tried introducing myself as イングランド人 and even ブリテン人 when I first visited Japan, to be pendantic. You can imagine how well that went 
Oh come on… It’s so easy!
Is it really surprising that Japanese people don’t know the details of the UK geography that well?
The top comment for that youtube video is:
watch this madness with 0.5x speed.
suddenly a drunk man tells everything peacefully…
regards…
be right back
EDIT: Double speed is equally entertaining hahaha
I always thought that 英国 was one of the older formal country names used back before the war, like 米国 or 仏国. Nowadays, people just say イギリス、アメリカ、or フランス.
Many languages (including Japanese) call all of the Netherlands “Holland”, so it’s not a unique thing.
Granted, that’s not as big as the UK/England thing, but a similar pattern.
“Then who are the Dutch?” - George Costanza
At work I’ve had senseis ask me:
‘Where are from イギリス?’
To which I replied ‘Yes, イギリス.’ (Thinking that イギリス meant England.)
To which they ask ‘イングランド？’
And then I realised that some Japanese people do know that there’s a difference.
So I’ve started using イギリス to mean the UK, and when I want to be more specific I say イングランド。
In the the geography lesson for my third years a few weeks back (English class; learning country names), my 英語先生 taught that 英国・イギリス = the UK. I’d say about 80% of the students knew there were multiple countries in the UK (they all knew for what it stood), but only like 10% of the students could name all four (Northern Ireland and Wales seem to be the lesser known). Probably about 40% of them thought all of Ireland was part of the UK.
Yeah. Tell them you’re from Wales and watch the confusion. You wonder if they teach any geography in Japan.
Do kids in Wales learn the regions of Japan?
No. But we know where Japan is. I get asked if Wales is in America, or Australia, or Africa, or South America on a regular basis.
That’s not the same though, is it. Wales is a part of a larger country that they do know the location of, so the equivalent would be knowing all the larger regions of Japan (like Tohoku, Shikoku, Chugoku, etc)
It’s interesting to me that it seems like people from the UK don’t seem to think of it that way.
I think it is pretty ok to use 英国 or イギリス人 when one is not too specific. It is simply a case of synecdoche, a figure of speech where one part stand for the whole. In this case England is used as a synecdoche for the entire United Kingdom. We do the same in Italian all the time.