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I am flying to Glasgow tomorrow. English isn't my mother tongue. In spite of living in London for the last 10 years, I still struggle with understanding different accents.

My main concern about the time I'll spend in Glasgow is that I won't be able to communicate well, simply because I can't understand what they say.

What is a polite way to inform all the people I deal with there that I can't understand what he/she says and it's my fault, NOT his/hers?

Willeke
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Ulkoma
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  • Anything like pardon me? or could you please repeat? will do. – JoErNanO Dec 13 '15 at 19:50
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    Try "Yer bum's oot the windae!" :P –  Dec 13 '15 at 19:51
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    @JoErNanO repeating will make things even worse, I need to explain to them that they need to talk to me slower and treat me like a stupid person – Ulkoma Dec 13 '15 at 19:55
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    Is there something about "I'm from Finland and have trouble with Scottish accents. Could you speak a bit slower?" that doesn't seem workable? – Louis Dec 13 '15 at 21:10
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    @Joulupukki Despite their accents, Scots are humans too. :) Therefore you can expect the same empathy that normal people have when facing a foreigner who's genuinely making the effort to understand and speak the language. – JoErNanO Dec 13 '15 at 21:12
  • @JoErNanO I heard they are patriotic and they get offended if they think you are taking the piss of their accent or land, my ex wife is half Scottish and she used to say jocks land and nobody ever told her off but urban dictionary says that if I say it it would be considered racist – Ulkoma Dec 13 '15 at 21:17
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    @Joulupukki Don't believe everything you hear. Go there and try it for yourself. – JoErNanO Dec 13 '15 at 21:44
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    Nobody will think twice about someone with a noticeable foreign accent struggling to understand the Glaswegian accent. Doing the same with an upper class English accent might be seen as less polite, of course! – djr Dec 13 '15 at 21:55
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    "I ken nay enderstand yeh" –  Dec 14 '15 at 02:08
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    When I went with the boat to Newcastle I met a Glaswegian trucker. Taught me the basics of the accent before I even hit dry land and it did wonders for my understanding of the language. Try to find yourself a native, practice a bit and you'll see the same thing happening. – Mast Dec 14 '15 at 13:01
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    I am English and I have struggled with the accent sometimes. The Scottish people I spoke to were fine with it and we even had a bit of a joke about it.

    As others have said be polite and you won't face any problems. The Scots can be very blunt and have no problem with you being blunt in return.

    Enjoy the trip though. Scotland is a great place.

     – Three Value Logic Dec 14 '15 at 14:28
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    A Glaswegian will feel complimented if you complain about the incomprehensibility of his speech. It's just further validation that he's NOT ENGLISH. Everything in Scottish culture is subordinated to this primary objective. Don't mention living in London, or England at all, just pretend you're off the plane from Finland and you'll be fine. – TheMathemagician Dec 14 '15 at 16:15
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    To everyone making silly phonetic Scottish responses: please keep in mind that "the sound of the Scottish accent" was in large part defined for the American cultural consciousness by a Canadian actor, James Doohan. American movies and TV shows ever since have been imitating Mr. Scott as the archetypical Scottish accent, but Doohan's Scottish accent was very exaggerated. You can get a much better idea of an authentic Scottish accent by listening to authentic Scottish actors, such as Sean Connery or Iain De Caestecker (Fitz on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) – Mason Wheeler Dec 14 '15 at 16:38
  • If you are obsessive enough, you can go through some of these recordings (with synchronized transcripts!) at scottishcorpus.ac.uk. It will give you some practice in advance. – Szabolcs Dec 16 '15 at 15:53
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    Show him the famous "ELEVEN!!!" video with two men in elevator. – sharptooth Jan 18 '16 at 08:06
  • @sharptooth Good idea. Here – Ulkoma May 27 '18 at 15:00

3 Answers3

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I'm English and lived in Glasgow for 4 years. Understanding many (but certainly not all) people will be tricky (even us native speakers struggle), but they'll be very willing to try to help you understand, and it won't cause offence.

You probably won't even need to explain: as soon as they see look of blank incomprehension and hear you begin to say "Err, sorry" in a non-Scottish accent they'll usually laugh and know what's going on. It's a common situation. A few things to understand about Glasgow:

  • They're used to it. It's a running joke in the UK that the Weegie accent is especially hard to understand. I certainly struggled more than once, and I'm a native English speaker. Everyone in Glasgow is familiar with this. Heck, plenty of people from Edinburgh struggle to understand Glaswegians (to the delight of many Glaswegians, who take it as proof that their Edinburgh rivals are less truly Scottish...). It's a very familiar situation.
  • It's actually somewhat exaggerated - most Glaswegians are very easy to understand. So much so that Scotland generally and Glasgow in particular is a popular place for companies to house call centres - it's a very expressive accent, and studies find people respond well to it, it sounds honest and warm. But when an individual Glaswegian is difficult to understand, and many are, they're very difficult to understand - and you will encounter several such people. It won't be everyone you meet, or even the majority, just a very memorable, sizeable minority.
  • They take pride in being helpful to foreign guests. Glaswegians take a lot of pride in being welcoming to outsiders (especially non-English outsiders... :-) but surprisingly welcoming to us sassenachs too), and particularly to Scandinavians (many pro-independence Glaswegians feel more affinity to social-democratic Scandinavia than they do to the London-dominated, more conservative UK). The Refuweegee project is a topical textbook example of Weegie pride in being warmly welcoming to foreigners. Most Glaswegians will be very happy to try to help you out.
  • They're very aware of the difference between their speech and standard English, and tend to be rather proud of it. The idea that Scots dialect is not a dialect but a wholly separate language to English is pretty popular in pro-independence Glasgow, and there's even a term for and books about Glasgow's unique "patter". Scots spell differently when writing in Scots as opposed to formal English: Scottish Twitter is great, and there are even English-Scots online translators. Glaswegians take a lot of pride in having a good sense of humour and being able to take some stick, and also in being a bit different to everywhere else. Something like this won't cause offence.
  • They may have had the same experience themselves. Not only are Glaswegians familiar with others struggling to understand their accents, they're also familiar with struggling to understand other, even stronger Scottish accents themselves. For example, there's the potentially-offensive Scots word Teuchter (pronounced like Choo-chter, with the second ch like Loch), which a Glaswegian friend cheerfully translated to me as meaning "Those bampots from up North who we cannae understand what they're saying"; before doing an impression of a Teuchter accent (north highland Scottish) which, to me, was actually slightly easier to understand than her normal speech... Scottish accents are very varied, and it's not uncommon for Scots to have experienced struggling to understand other Scots.

While getting people to try to help you understand will be easy, getting them to succeed in helping you understand them is a different story... Luckily, if all else fails, Glaswegians tend to be very expressive with their body language :-).

You're very unlikely to cause offence (unless you accidentally get your country names mixed up and talk as if Scotland is a part of England, or imply that you think Edinburgh is in any way Scotland's most important city... those common tourist mistakes will cause offence!)

One thing to be aware of is, if you're used to Londoners, Glaswegians tend to be much more direct and expressive. In general in the UK, the further North, the more directly people say what they mean.

Don't panic if a Glaswegian says something blunt or confrontational that a Londoner would only ever say to a mortal enemy - it's usually just friendly banter and a sign they trust you have a good sense of humour too. If the laughing stops and someone starts being very precise and pointed about what they say, that's when to start being careful.

Update - Mast posted a comment above suggesting practicing with a native to get used to the accent. If that's hard to do, there are several famous Glaswegian comedians who have medium-strength Glaswegian accents. Look for videos of:

  • Kevin Bridges
  • Billy Connolly  
  • Frankie Boyle (warning - not for the easily offended)
  • (fictional character) Rab C Nesbitt (also possibly not for the easily offended)
  • Episodes of the sitcom Still Game
  • Karen Dunbar
  • Limmy
user56reinstatemonica8
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  • I'm from southern England and learned the term Weegie when I lived in Aberdeen for 2 years. When I went back to southern England, I called my colleague a Weegie and she'd never even heard the term (though she got it straight away.) 2. When my sister visited me, she found the Teuchter accent in the rural areas away from Aberdeen city highly entertaining, and kept people talking just to hear more of it. 3. Regarding your link to Teuchter: that's the first time I've seen Uncyclopedia quoted as a reliable reference source! 4. For listening practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rab_C._Nesbitt
    • – Level River St Dec 14 '15 at 01:28
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    @steveverrill I read the Wikipedia article on "Teuchter", and the Uncyclopedia article, and the latter was much closer to how the term is actually used in Glasgow! – user56reinstatemonica8 Dec 14 '15 at 01:30
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    It's exactly how the the Glaswegians think of the Teuchters! I was told once when waiting to board a plane for Glasgow Prestwick Airport: Ye Lav en Aberdeen? They got a new use for sheep up there. It's called wool! – Level River St Dec 14 '15 at 01:47
  • LOL RFLMAO @steveverrill – Burhan Khalid Dec 14 '15 at 05:45
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    To be fair, pretty much everyone across the UK makes similar accusations about whoever their more rural neighbours are. There's a popular rumour that it dates back to medieval times when, allegedly, the penalty for stealing sheep was death but the penalty for "intimacy" with sheep was a few years in prison - so quick-thinking thieves caught stealing sheep would reduce their punishments by hurriedly dropping their trousers. – user56reinstatemonica8 Dec 14 '15 at 07:59
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    It's [the difficulty] actually somewhat exaggerated -- especially in hotels, restaurants etc.(even many city centre pubs IME). The accent is interesting but not too tricky among people used to dealing with the rest of the world. – Chris H - UK Dec 14 '15 at 09:21
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    And don't fail to check out Stanley Baxter's Weegie As A Foreign Language series "Parliamo Glasgow" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfCk_yNuTGk – Grimxn Dec 14 '15 at 13:54
  • I actually don't understand why these are called "accents" when they have different words. Shouldn't these be called languages? I thought accent was a speech thing, not a written thing. – user541686 Dec 15 '15 at 00:45
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    @Mehrdad: I think the use of different words is at least bordering on being a dialect, not just an accent. When using "standard" words, a Glaswegian would still have an accent. – Peter Cordes Dec 15 '15 at 04:14
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    +1 for Still Game ... excellent stuff. "Chewin' The Fat" is also worth watching (same folk as Still Game) – Algy Taylor Dec 15 '15 at 08:13
  • And if this fails, just nod and hand him/her a beer - you'll have a friend for life, even if ye cannae understand a word he says. – Jon Story Dec 15 '15 at 10:57
  • @Mehrdad - British areas very (very) commonly have different words, by that standard, there are hundreds of languages in the UK. There's a question of at what point it becomes another language, but the vast majority of words are the same. – Jon Story Dec 15 '15 at 10:58
  • @Mehrdad it's a sliding scale. "Ah cannae understand wha ye wan tae say" is English written in a simulation of a scots accent. "D'ye no ken me blether, pal?" is Scots dialect, because it contains words not in standard English. Most people can easily switch between their regional dialect and standard English depending on the situation, but it's much harder to switch off the accent. – user56reinstatemonica8 Dec 15 '15 at 11:14
  • For some reason I wasn't thinking properly in my last comment. I did mean to say "dialects" instead of "languages", for some reason I wasn't thinking properly and the right word didn't come to my mind. But yes, thanks for the explanations. – user541686 Dec 15 '15 at 11:40
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    Scots is a separate language. Most people in Scotland may not speak it regularly, but they do have some understanding of it. Glaswegian is a dialect of Scots, it does have plenty of influences from English and Gaelic. It is rather different to just speaking English with a Scottish accent. – vclaw Dec 15 '15 at 21:38