Hey all. It’s frustrating me that I can’t find any words that mean England specifically, not inclusive of all Britain. This would be useful for describing my heritage in Japanese, which comes from a mix of countries in the British Isles. So far I’ve got イギリス and 英国, both of which seem to mean England, the UK AND Britain, but neither one specifically. Help?
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England is イングランド. If you go to the Japanese Wikipedia article for the UK (the title of which is イギリス), that’s what they call England in describing the 4 constituent countries.
イギリス is the common word for the UK, but people conflating England and the UK is not unique to the Japanese. 英国 is also generally used for the UK, not England specifically. But you can’t stop people who just don’t understand what the relationships are from using them incorrectly.
Though イギリス is also not the official name for the UK, just like “the UK” is not official either.
The full name is グレートブリテン及び北アイルランド連合王国.
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Thank you! Very helpful.
Actually, since you were so helpful, I was wondering if you could ask you another question? 有毒 means both venomous and poisonous according to WaniKani. So, how do you differentiate the meanings? As in, “this snake is venomous, but not poisonous”.
Well, my understanding of the difference is just the method of delivery, that venomous is more specific. Poisonous things are toxic if something they produce gets into you somehow, and venomous things inject you with something toxic.
Since 毒 is essentially just about “a substance that harms lifeforms” they don’t seem to distinguish by delivery method the way we do with separate adjectives. A poison dart frog, which is not venomous, and a venomous snake, would both be 有毒. You’d just have to describe what part of the animal has the toxin and how another animal would be in danger from it.
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Okay cool - I know where I live it’s important to know the difference haha, hopefully I’ll survive in Japan either way! And yeah, technically you can eat venom and be fine since it only kills you if it enters the bloodstream.
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