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English people who cannot understand a Scottish accent

Really fooking piss me off

Make a fooking effort u parochialists

It's not just an accent though, some of you use a completely unintelligible dialect that bares no resemblance really to English. That combined with the accent make it incomprehensible.

Weegies are the worst for this. 

I have the most BBC Scottish accent it is possible to have (the ones who went to state school, like). But it still gets them.

"Could I have a fizzy water please?"

"Pardon?"

"A fizzy water please?"

"Oh ... A water?"

"Yes."

"Ah RIGHT. Still or sparkling?"

 

I went to the US with a Welsh friend some years back. It was deeply weird. Even though his accent was basically middle class English - he lived near the border and while you could hear the Welsh if you knew what you were looking for you wouldn't notice if you weren't told - no one could understand him. He'd say something two or three times and be met with a blank look. Then I'd repeat it and they'd get it instantly.

I like the video of the Scottish couple shouting at Alexa for not being able to understand them

i particularly like the way the English accent they adopt in order to be understood is a sort of estuary Danny Dyer mockney and she gets it first time

Alexaaa, play Ri’annaaaaa

Last time I went to Glasgow the bus driver was completely unintelligible, even after 3 repeats. Fortunately some kind women on the bus translated the stroppy moron, who was obviously putting it on 

I'm told there was a lot of Scotch anger in HK, when the local TV station started using subtitles with Scotch speakers

 

 

Glaswegian taxi drivers are genuinely impossible for most english people to understand.   I find it easier to understand taxi drivers in most other countries through a combination of their broken english and my broken french/spanish etc.

I went to California when I was about 21 and had a hell of a time with my accent.  Went into a Subway and asked for one of the cookies with "smarties" in it and the guy basically had a panic attack.  Also loads of them were like "oh mai gaahd you're Skattish?!  Ai'm Airish!!!"  Sure u are pal.

I think sometimes you need to give people a little leeway for tuning in to a different accent they weren't expecting.

But I'm otherwise totally with you.  I HATE it when people can't understand other UK accents or dialects and even worse think its ok to just say they "don't understand Scottish" or worse yet slag it off, with their plummy little entitled rat faces.

The basic problem is that English has 20 different vowel sounds, which is why different pronounciations can be difficult to understand, until you manage to 'tune in' to the difference

If a Scottish person starts talking at me I generally give them 50p for a cup of tea.

Obviously I don't understand a word they are saying, but that's generally what they are after I believe.

I have a quintessential Morningside accent and am regularly told by Mancunian receptionists that I have lovely dulcet tones.

Yet every August I go full Begby on every home counties fooker who dares ask me directions to Underbelly.

I’m sorry if you find it pathetic, but I struggle to understand strong accents. I had a client who was a fisherman from Banff; I understood about 70% of what he said.

I even had to rewind some of Michelle from Derry Girls lines to get what she was saying (worth it every time)

All second generation south easterners sound either geezer, middling nothing or posh. Draw a line from Southampton to Oxford to MK to Cambridge to Ipswich and they all sound like one of those. 

If you’re in deepest Surrey and someone says a scotch thing to you like “wha time ay they Guildford weatherspins openin’ pal?” then yes it catches you cold and your ear hasn’t had time to adjust.

if in Glasgae and someone says a scotch thing like “see my heed? See yer nose?” then your ears should be warmed up and you should know to take evasive action.

Most English people who claim not to be able to understand Scots accents are just doing it to get a rise. You have to be a complete fookwit to have lived in Britain your whole life and not understand a scottish accent.

a few months ago thought i would try to force my 8 year old to take an interest in current affairs by watching Newsround. we tune in on the iplayer. a bloke in a wheelchair starts talking in glaswegian.

the credits roll.

"dad, was that in English?"

let's get this straight. It's a Glasgow issue, not a Scottish one. 

It is emintently feasible to have been in the UK your whole life (but not living in Scotland), plonk yourself down in Glasgow and stuggle a bit with a) accent and b) vocab. I say this because it's exactly what happened to me. It was a phase I got through in about 6 months, minor stuff, but it was there. 

Glaswegian isn’t just an accent though. A lot of different and new vocabulary and the sentence construction is often different.

Eg the word ‘outwith’ which no English person ever says.

I have been watching a chap on Youtube, I think he is from Yorkshire. Starts every piece, with "how do" WTAF.

I notice my friends from Manc, Liverpool, Yorkshire, and Scotland when they come to London they deliberatley over exaggerate their accents not least of all when buying stuff in a shop. They also tend to raise the volume considerably. I think they do it to get a rise from the teller in the shop. This is always done when visiting.

Edinburgh accent easy to understand. Glasgow, very difficult. And Kevin Bridges I am sure he over does it for effect. It is so over the top and barely decipherable.

Worked in Scotland for a while and the only accent I had trouble with was the Ayrshire one. In the high-up mining villages.   
 

The Scots had more problems with mine. “Are you from Leeds?” ffs. 

Edinburgh accent easy to understand. Glasgow, very difficult. And Kevin Bridges I am sure he over does it for effect. It is so over the top and barely decipherable.

This is exactly kind of patheticness Clergs means.

'If a Scottish person starts talking at me I generally give them 50p for a cup of tea.'

Outside Victoria Station I tried replying in German

He had my number

" I know yr English yer bastard"

I don't have a problem with Scottish accents but thick Ulster accents can be challenging.

I had a new client from there who had a fairly random email address (ie not his name or anything like it) and I asked him to spell it for me, which he did, and I then tried to email him but got a bounceback. I had to call him back and ask him to spell it again phonetically.

Basically the issue was that the 'i's had sounded like 'a's to me.

Hardrada, so he could tell that you were English, but could he tell whether you are a man or a woman?

Anyway, top tip, if a beggar outside Victoria Station does misgender you, don’t argue, just get away.

"up country" Ayrshire accents can be challenging even to a Glaswegian.  There's a lot of really heavy lowlands scots words used in there rather than accented English

"Most English people who claim not to be able to understand Scots accents are just doing it to get a rise."

Yeah, it's mostly a weird posh boi flex, innit? 

I once worked with a Scotsman who was from Stirling.

If I was in the same room as him I managed about 6 words in 10… and I could get a general understanding from context. 
 

On the phone it was maybe 2 in 10. I just could not understand him. 
 

It was like all the sounds for words were there but my brain couldn’t put them in order.  

"Could I have a fizzy water please?"

"Pardon?"

"A fizzy water please?"

"Oh ... A water?"

"Yes."

"Ah RIGHT. Still or sparkling?"

 

If you ever say the word sparkling they have won. You must not let that happen. It's a stupid word and eventually they will learn after you have said it 30 times that the word is fizzy.

I have an American lady who works for me and if she answers the phone to a Scot you see the panic attack brewing within seconds - wild eyes looking for anyone she can hand the phone to. 
As if any of us know WTF they’re talking about. 

Mrs Git once dropped into the office and asked our Aussie receptionist to let me know that ‘her indoors’ had arrived.

I got a message by BBCemail  that someone called Erin Dawes was in Reception. 

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