Years ago, I got a job at a large multinational corporation in Amsterdam. First day, first team meeting, we were all from different countries but all spoke English. Except for that one guy. He seemed really lovely and I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't make an effort. Everyone else understood him just fine, so he would have had to make an effort just for me, but still. It was such a weird experience, he spoke Dutch (I assumed), but everyone responded to him in English. Anyway, based on what everyone else was saying I just about got the gist of what he said in that meeting, but I knew it wasn't sustainable. It was going to take me a while to be fluent in Dutch, so I decided to gently ask him if he could speak English when I'm around, for now. Everyone burst out laughing, they found my request absolutely hilarious! 😂 I was so confused... Turned out he was Glaswegian and spoke English all along 😂 True story! :D
Oh LOL. Yes I sympathise. Great story. I remember an interview with Billy Conolly where he took his kids from LA to Scotland. To Glasgow, I think. They asked him two questions: 1) "Why is the sky so low?" and 2) "Why is everyone growling at me?"
I understand exactly what you mean: My first job in Geneva Switzerland 30 years ago, with an audit company, I am the only local guy in the team. The other members are two freshly arrived expats: one from Scotland, the other from Australia. Our main contact with the client was English, speaking with a pronounced cockney accent. What saved me partially is they had to slow down a bit to understand each other...
Reminds me of the time I took my Aussie wife back to Scotland to meet the family. They decided to have a night at the Bingo. It was hilarious as she never understood a word from the Bingo caller.
Beautiful clips. My grandmother, rest her soul, was from York. She'd lived here in Australia for many years and we generally understood her as kids, but whenever she was chatting with other Yorkshire folk, it was as if she was speaking an entirely different language. We really miss that beautiful lady in our lives.
Its my grandpa!!!! He used to sound EXACTLY like this!! No one could understand him and of course my sister and I did since we grew up with him, no one told us XD!!
When I was a kid in NZ we used to visit my g.grandma who was a Geordie that never lost her brogue. Had been in NZ since 1914 and this was the early 60s. Mum was my translator, I could never understand her.
I remember my grandfather in Scotland basically thumping his hands on the table and pretty much condeming us to fire and brimstone. It sounded like he was swearing.
Lived in Scotland for a couple of years. It took me 6 months before I could fully understand everyone. (A year and a half for Glaswegian) Listening to this, it took about 25 seconds for my brain to switch gears back into understanding him.
@@SeoAnndra If you ever needed proof that "Scots" is Scots English, and has nothing to do with Scots whatsoever, this discussion of word usage by two people with Sassanach names fits the bill. ;D
@@SeoAnndra "Scots" English is a language of Anglo-Saxons, aka Lothian Sassanachs. The form spoken by actual Scots is more flat and nasally, and only exists due to the necessities of commerce. A daughter dialect of this can be found in Pittsburgh Yinzer in America. Your name is English, OP's is Anglo-Irish. 'Nuff said.
Jake D'Arcy just had one of those faces that screamed Glaswegian, although he was actually born in the south of England at the end of WW2 - RIP (2015). aka the football coach in "Gregory's Girl" and, of course, Pete the Jakey in "Still Game"
"But why should I? I talk like this all the time." Both perfectly valid questions. So nice (and sadly unusual) to hear a frank but friendly conversation about accents!
The wildest accent I’ve ever heard was a Cuban man who learned English from West Virginian moonshiners. Honestly, I could’ve listened to that guy for hours. I’m sorry people can be so rude about accents, I think they are all lovely and tell such a rich story. The Scottish accent definitely is the best in the world, though, I must say.
Discovered this a few days ago and it is outright the best accent I have encountered. Someone said it is Czech. I have no idea. ua-cam.com/video/-9RB3T_kVh4/v-deo.html
Every country has an obsession with "neutral" accent, but that thing doesn't exist. Every person has an accent, there's no neutral accent. I'm galician (northwest spain) and the spaniards want to imitate our accent but they can't because our entonation is more "melodical" than theirs, but anyway, they find it funny. In some way is something similar in a irish-uk context to irish english, I suppose. I love how scottish accent sounds but I recognise that at the beggining is difficult to understand for a non english speaker.
In another episode she is playing eye spy and chooses T for time. After a hilarious argument where she is told she can’t have that because you can’t see time. She responds by exclaiming, “people always say, have you seen the time”. Just perfect.
I'm from the US. A while back I was on vacation in Scotland and having a drink in a pub in Ayr. I had a nice conversation with a Scottish gentleman and a British businessman with a Cockney accent. The British fellow had to interpret everything the Scot said.
Aye, the Scotsman was probably playing his role and laying it on thick. That's whit ah wid dae! I was born close to Ayr. ps to be pedantic they are both British though that is a bone of contention with some of us :)
Oh! I Loved Gregory's Girl! I've never even met anyone else who has seen it! I'm in the states - but I desperately want to live in the UK! Your accents are beautiful, and I want to speak beautifully too! I adore your humor, your telly, and your stars! And I love that people are more cordial there in general. My heritage on both sides is Welch, Irish and Scottish. I FEEL homesick, and I've never even been there! ❤️❤️❤️
Funniest family show EVER. The biggest belly laughs of my life were when watching this show. Daddy doing his 'thing'. Ben pointing at his dad hollering "Stranger! STRANGER!!"
I’m from Northern Ireland but I worked for a year in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. It blew my mind that everyone thought that I was from Scotland 🏴🤣 because of how similar our accents are. Mind you, I wasn’t complaining, quite happy to be mistaken for one of our Scottish cousins
@@pussycats456 no it isn’t. It’s perfectly acceptable to inform someone you didn’t understand a word of what they said. In fact, I’d say it’s completely necessary to let someone know you didn’t understand a word of what they said.
At a wedding recently and saw a trans guy talking with a group of adults with a couple kids. After the trans guy had wandered off and the adults were still talking i saw one of the kids look around at the parents with a weird puzzled look and exclaim loudly 'But...it's a MAN! Why are you pretending that it's not a man?' Every adult was suddenly very interested in their own shoes.
@@strangelee4400 Great! Classic 'The Emperor has no Clothes'! And why indeed? Society is presently gripped by a pervasive hypocrisy. 'Out the mouths of babes...'
Not from my experience of visiting Glasgee. I asked for directions to The Gorbals in my best BBC Southern English accent and got directed to the local swimming baths though I think the local guys were taking the p. :)
11 years ago and I am just not (October 2021) finding it ONLY because UA-cam introduced me to it! The entire segment is fun! The little girl’s comments are really amusing! I hear French and Deutsch in various parts California but no Scotsmen yet. I tell each when I greet them that California became a wee bit smarter with them here!
You went out of your Cali way to call the German language Deutsch, then imply you've heard no one speak Gaelic or is it that you have not run into a man from Scotland.
@@ScooterFXRS My “Cali” way? 😆 A might arrogant eh? I did not go out of my way, I always call it Deutsch. WHO calls it “Cali”, besides you?! 😆 Wait, I do see stupid looking ball caps around California that have “Cali” on them! I still have not HEARD anyone say “Cali”! I prefer to call the German language Deutsch because that is what it is it called in Deutschland. I LIVED in Deutschland. Either way you want to say it I have not heard anyone, standing near me, with a Scottish accent nor anyone speak Gaelic. I would tell them the same, “thank you for visiting near me”. The crap English I hear sometimes sounds ridiculous.
I am so glad listening to this episode. I had some business with Steward factory in Scotland and I dramatically failed understanding what the secretary was telling me on the phone. A really embarassing situation for me as I thought my school english is just too poor.
A long time ago I met 2 guys from Glasgow, growing up in New York I know lots of languages but when I listened in on their conversation I asked my friend what country they came from because I never heard anything like this new strange language. Now I think it’s adorable.
A, wee Scottie lad arrived at our rural school in New Zealand. He was from Glasgow, we, his classmates, struggled to understand him then and even now 65 years down the line, when we meet up for school reunions, he is a broad Glasgowian as ever. He married a local girl, had three children and they all have the same broad Scottish accent, which used to completely bamboozle strangers, three visually definately part Maori children speaking Scottish, interestingly their children have a slight accent but on occasions, usually after holidays with their grand dad, they are as broad as he is. I have worked with many Scottish nurses and I just love the Scottish accent, but if they get angry about something, even those with a sift accent are barely decipherable.
@@alisoncooper1421 Thank you for sharing. Nice story. I’ve lived in Sydney for a long time but I still have to spell my name and over the phone, forget it. You can take the girl out of the Bronx…
While I was in England I was watching a UK show called "MI-5". It's called something else there. Anyway, in an opening scene a group of Cockney burglars are robbing a very posh London flat, and steal something, a top secret item, they should not have. Anyway while they are chatting about and ransacking the place, subtitles start appearing under their dialogue. I started laughing so hard when I realized the producers thought subtitles were necessary for these Cockney gents because they thought not even other English people would understand them!
My grandmother called it the "old English" and when my grade 3 teacher supervising the playground saw me watching a road paver outside the fence yelled at me then came running up to me and asked me "don't you understand plain English?" .. I looked at her (didn't hear her over the noise of the fantastic machine paver ) and answered -NO -straight-faced and innocent like .... I always will remember how surprised I was when she grabbed my cheek and hauled me off to see the principal!! Nollaig cridhei !
It's alright, lass, I can sympathize. When the film "Train Spotting" was screened, here in the U.S., it appeared with subtitles, as if it were in Italian or French. We would have been lost without them.
When Mad Max 1 was released in the US they dubbed it with American actors as they thought Americans wouldn’t be able to understand Aussie slang lol. They released in the UK with the American voices too for years we couldn’t hear the original Aussie version
I married a Scot and some of her relatives were from Glasgow. At the wedding they were drunk and I couldn’t understand a word they said so just smiled and nodded my head 😊
I remember the first time the Proclaimers were on American TV (The David Letterman Show), and Dave could not understand them, so he just nodded to everything they said to him.
I am Aussie, and the funniest thing I came across was walking into a Fish and Chip shop, and seeing Chinese people behind the counter. I walked up and the Chinese man asked how I was going, in the broadest Scottish Accent I had ever heard. I looked at him in surprise and he laughed and said he and his family immigrated to Glasgow around 1900 and he grew up there so talks just like this man did. It was so funny. But they did have the best Fish and Chips in the area.
I was born and raised in Somerset - 40 years ago, in my first job as an apprentice, for 3 months I was assigned to be mentored by a Glaswegian. I never did understand what he was trying to tell me. Scary really as we were assembling aircraft parts. I just looked at the drawings and nodded when it seemed appropriate. Glad to say all the units I built passed inspection.
Every time we went to England and a native repeated the wee girl's closing statement, "I didn't understand a word of that", we always considered it a badge of honour.
@@sarcasmo57 Some have meat (food), and they can't eat, And some have none, but want it. But we have meat (food), and we can eat, So let the Lord be thanked!
I have a Glaswegian friend who has been living in London, Ontario for decades. I understand her while many have no idea what she is saying. Her Canadian children have Canadian accents. My friend is full of life and fun and uses expressions and vocabulary unique to Glascow.
American here... I had the privilege of working in England for a year in Newbury, about an hour's train ride west from London. I quickly found a local pub. The manager was Cockney and his SO was from Glasgow. Between them, I could hardly understand half of what they said. :D
Back in the late 50's My US Air Force family lived in Newbury. We were from South Texas and the locals had a bit of trouble understanding our version of English. However my youngest brother developed a sort of English accent by the time we returned to the US.
One of the writers described Ramona Marquez (Karen) as having the face of an angel and the mind of a barrister. She was 7 years old at the time. Never forgotten that quote as it seems so true!
First of all, I'll have you know Ramona Marquez's character's name is Kylie and how do I know that? Because I used to watch this series when I was a kid, and I know all of the characters so please get her name right in the future, and, second of all, the only thing you're doing right now is dissing my autistic friend who likes YUNGBLUD (a dish made from fuit and eggs), whose name is, obviously, Karen.
You think that's bad? I was in a restaurant recently when suddenly a man at the table next to me started choking. I went over and gave him the Heimlich maneuver and he said: "What do you think you're doing? I'm just speaking Dutch."
First of all, I'll have you know her name is Kylie and how do I know that? Because I used to watch this series when I was a kid, and I know all of the characters so please get her name right in the future, and, second of all, the only thing you're doing right now is dissing my autistic friend who likes YUNGBLUD, whose name is, obviously, Karen.
I was born in Glasgow, 1948, in the 1980s I lived in San Francisco California and was married to a woman from Los Angeles, I took her to Glasgow in 1988 and she never understood a single word any of my family ever said to her though they thought I had married a Movie Star as she went to Hollywood High School and had an Aunt who lived in Beverley Hills, once we were up in the Scottish Highlands driving around and go lost, she asked this guy standing on the street some directions, I thanked him and drove on, she turns to me and said... Dont tell me you understood THAT... We found what we were looking for proving that I did indeed understand THAT...She went back to California, and I stayed for another three weeks and when she picked me up at the Airport she said she could hardly understand what I was saying as I didnt realize that my Glasgow accent had returned from the darkest parts of my mind. dear Auld Glesga Toon. That wee English Lassie was real funny..
The Scottish accent is so varied. This one, Billy Connelly and the Mike Myers (based on his father and older family) versions are all vastly different but inherently similar. For such a small country the variety is amazing.
I spent some time at St Andrews Univ and my cleaner and I had many conversations. Unfortunately, I never understood a word she said. The acting in this, both from the elderly Scotsman and the girl, is utterly brilliant.
Is he Albanian? No, he's from Scotland! She is a priceless comedian with uncanny timing & delivery like the elder gent. The old gaffer's "why should I talk like you" is golden. Instant fan of outnumbered!
I Know, ! Understand, ! See the point,! and the jist of the humour . .....But, the kids in this comedy are absolutely perfect in their roles. ......can ONLY be down to the perfect way Andy Hamilton sees society.
"Why should i?" - exactly. Makes a nice change that you are not *just* taking the piss solely on the basis that it's a different accent from your own. I wonder if this would be included in a TV show as readily, if it was Jamaican accents you were making fun of, or even French, German or Italian.
I was aboard a train from Birmingham to Manchester in June 1995, sat across from an elderly man and woman. As we acquainted ourselves, I was initially chatty as usual, friendly and curious. Eventually, the woman told me that she had just lost the last of her brothers and they were returning home after the recent funeral for him. She said little else and gently wept. Since she only spoke briefly, I never quite placed her accent. The man was chatty as well and did most of the talking from there. He had the thickest Scottish accent i’d ever heard. I’m from the United States. I couldn’t understand a word. For the remainder of the journey, I said little else and gently nodded.
The absence and misplacement of rhotic sounds in southern (ie posh) English makes it arguably the most incomprehensible of all our accents. It’s understandable maybe only because of its past prevalence in radio and tv! Accents are fun though. And we’ve all got favourites :).
Totally agree. Check the phonetic dictionary for words like "fur", "first", "answer" etc. They're all upside-down Greek letters and they represent strangulated or stretched vowels. The Scottish vowel sounds for "a" and "o" are actually very pure (and represented in the linguistic dictionary as "a" and "o"). Listen to a posh boy say "law and order" and insert the "r" after the first syllable (the "r" they don't usually pronounce). RP English is the weirdest language I know for vowel sounds, but we've been programmed to consider it nor only acceptable, but normal.
I worked with a lot of Scots in Saudi Arabia. I was one of the few who could actually understand what they were saying with their brogue. My brother had multiple medical issues including a speech impediment and my siblings and I had to translate essentially. For whatever reason, it was like listening to my brother. I was a translator. Once they taught me Scottish euphemisms I was in. They also introduced me to Billy Connolly. I am forever in their debt for that. Look him up on UA-cam doing the story about the dwarf. You’ll thank me.
Some of my grandparents and their siblings were from different parts of the UK. One would think that I would be able to distinguish and understand a thick Scottish accent from a Yorkshire , Cockney, or a Welsh after growing up and hearing those accents. Yet now I live in Western Canada and I still have to put on the Closed Captioning on anything I watch that originates in the "motherland". On the plus side of this is that I have picked up some of the various accents and pronunciation of words so when I talk with my relatives down south in my "fatherland" my Okie and Missouri family are always saying, "huh?" My favourite word to squeeze into my Americanadian accent is "controversy" (con-TROV-oh-see). Words like NIGH-ther and PROV-a-see are also embedded into my vocabulary. Grandpa Scotty would be proud for me to sound a smidgen like him. And just like that Bob's your uncle.
Unfortunately the ‘cun-TROV-u-see’ pronunciation seems to be rapidly dying out in England, even newsreaders say it in an American style (which IIRC is what I’ve heard Scotsmen say too), I persist with the traditional way of saying it though and I’m English. I don’t know what word you’re trying to spell phonetically as ‘PROV-a-see’ though, could you elaborate on that?
I remember when certain state of New York Police departments were given government grants to hire handicapped individuals to man the Emergency 911 lines in order to relieve actual police officers from this function so that they could go back on the streets. It was a disaster. Certain of the new employees had hearing impediments and asked panicked callers to repeat themselves, while others were afflicted with short term memory loss and would forget what was just told to them and would put partial or different (guessed) information out to be dispatched. The best story that came out of this of course was the Scotsman in a wheel chair who couldn't quite understand the New Yawk accent and the callers who would curse at him while "dying" because they didn't know what language he was talking. Needless to say the program ended after 90 short days until a better screening method could be devised.
I remember years ago I was out at a pug in Edinburg with two guys from Paisley. I could completely understand them the whole night except the one time when they argued between themselves over.... God only knows... hahaha
The only explanations I've come up with for the caliber of that girl's acting is that she's some kind of female Benjamin Button (only appears to be a young girl), or she was involved in some kind of Freaky Friday type scenario and has swapped bodies.
@@Cosmo-Kramer I should've been more specific. I'm commenting on the quality of her comedic acting: the beats, the delivery, the microexpressions. Things that many adult comedians spend their whole careers trying to master, most falling short.
The sounds are very similar. I'm Scottish and I live in Spain, and I'm learning some Arabic. It's fascinating. And you were right - it was more or less, "how are you?"
I worked in Austria for a while, but my German understanding was fairly poor so I couldn't keep up with what people were saying most of the time. One day I was eating in the canteen and could hear a chap talking quickly and of course couldn't understand him. Suddenly it dawned on me that he was talking English with a Glaswegian accent and I had just not understood him for several minutes. Interestingly, many Austrians struggle to understand their own language when spoken by a German.
I loved that, as someone who has been lucky enough to live in Scotland for many years and benefit from the kindness and courtesy of Scottish people - what a beautiful accent, and a beautiful grace.
First of all, I'll have you know her name is Kylie and how do I know that? Because I used to watch this series when I was a kid, and I know all of the characters so please get her name right in the future, and, second of all, the only thing you're doing right now is dissing my autistic friend who likes YUNGBLUD, whose name is, obviously, Karen.
I think there are as many as 17 dialects in Scotland, what a great culture though! There are loads of words we've picked up from them : aye, nowt lassie are all words we use every day.
aye = from Middle English a ye (“oh yes”) nowt = northern English dialectal pronunciation of "naught" lassie = from Middle English lasse (“an unmarried woman, maiden”) We use them every day because they're our words.
@wimse10 well theres many types of accents in scotland, england and ireland so a british accent could be any one of them. It depends what area you come from, people who live 15 miles down the road from me have different accents to the people of the city im currently living in :) but yeah i love australian accents too!
The bit at the start, he was just talking jibberish! I am Scottish and i couldn't understand that. I love the bit " what do you mean heed " LOL "NAIN" I love being Scottish and having our own dialect and bordering on different language. People don't understand that Scottish people have been speaking like this for as long as English people have been speaking proper English.
That little girl was easily the best character. She looked so innocent and yet delivered some of the funniest lines.
HAHA precocious children are an American cultural element now infecting the UK and they're SO FUNNY HAHAHA
@@DonHavjuan alright mate. Think you’ve had one too many.
Most Truthful Lines XD
I love the realism of the child saying what she thinks with no filter
The series was remarkable because the actors were largely improvising, kids included. A true gem.
She improvised a great deal like her 2 Brothers..:)
@D Jarvis Hear hear, I totally agree with you. Freedom of speech is the hinge pin of freedom.
They must be speaking English because its surely not American.
All the kids are amazingly sharp for their ages.
Years ago, I got a job at a large multinational corporation in Amsterdam. First day, first team meeting, we were all from different countries but all spoke English. Except for that one guy. He seemed really lovely and I couldn't figure out why he wouldn't make an effort. Everyone else understood him just fine, so he would have had to make an effort just for me, but still. It was such a weird experience, he spoke Dutch (I assumed), but everyone responded to him in English. Anyway, based on what everyone else was saying I just about got the gist of what he said in that meeting, but I knew it wasn't sustainable. It was going to take me a while to be fluent in Dutch, so I decided to gently ask him if he could speak English when I'm around, for now. Everyone burst out laughing, they found my request absolutely hilarious! 😂 I was so confused... Turned out he was Glaswegian and spoke English all along 😂 True story! :D
Oh LOL. Yes I sympathise. Great story.
I remember an interview with Billy Conolly where he took his kids from LA to Scotland. To Glasgow, I think.
They asked him two questions:
1) "Why is the sky so low?" and
2) "Why is everyone growling at me?"
that's hilarious ;)
I understand exactly what you mean: My first job in Geneva Switzerland 30 years ago, with an audit company, I am the only local guy in the team. The other members are two freshly arrived expats: one from Scotland, the other from Australia. Our main contact with the client was English, speaking with a pronounced cockney accent. What saved me partially is they had to slow down a bit to understand each other...
_"Everyone else understood him just fine... [H]e spoke Dutch (I assumed), but everyone responded to him in English."_
Ah, the "Star Wars" model.
Scots is intelligible to most Dutch people as a good chunk of it is Dutch in origin.
Reminds me of the time I took my Aussie wife back to Scotland to meet the family. They decided to have a night at the Bingo. It was hilarious as she never understood a word from the Bingo caller.
Beautiful clips. My grandmother, rest her soul, was from York. She'd lived here in Australia for many years and we generally understood her as kids, but whenever she was chatting with other Yorkshire folk, it was as if she was speaking an entirely different language. We really miss that beautiful lady in our lives.
Its my grandpa!!!!
He used to sound EXACTLY like this!! No one could understand him and of course my sister and I did since we grew up with him, no one told us XD!!
the grandad and the little (wee) girl stole the show lol
When I was a kid in NZ we used to visit my g.grandma who was a Geordie that never lost her brogue. Had been in NZ since 1914 and this was the early 60s.
Mum was my translator, I could never understand her.
I love the Geordie accent!!
I’m biased though.
My Mum was a Geordie!
Northumbrian Scots.🏴👍🏼
it's a toty wee bit. Its even wee-er than a wee bit. It goes toty, toty, toty, toty, toty till ye've got nane!
Nane?
@@jeffreyadams648 nothing
The grace he gave at Christmas dinner was actually very touching.
It's known as The Selkirk Grace, by Robert Burns
Some have meat and can't eat, and some have none and want it.
But we have meat and we can eat so let the Lord be thanked.
My granny would often say that in Edinburgh. yes, its good, or 'aye, its guid' i should say!
rabbie burns.
I remember my grandfather in Scotland basically thumping his hands on the table and pretty much condeming us to fire and brimstone. It sounded like he was swearing.
Lived in Scotland for a couple of years. It took me 6 months before I could fully understand everyone. (A year and a half for Glaswegian)
Listening to this, it took about 25 seconds for my brain to switch gears back into understanding him.
Lived in Scotland for 50 years and still don't understand everyone. Oh, and by the way, I'm Scottish.
What he said when he came in: "Nollaig cridheil, ciamar a tha thu?"
Translation: "Merry Christmas, how are you?"
I didn't think he said thu, I thought he said all. Wither way he would have been better with sibh.
@@SeoAnndra If you ever needed proof that "Scots" is Scots English, and has nothing to do with Scots whatsoever, this discussion of word usage by two people with Sassanach names fits the bill. ;D
@@archenema6792 Sorry, I'm not following your point.
@@SeoAnndra "Scots" English is a language of Anglo-Saxons, aka Lothian Sassanachs. The form spoken by actual Scots is more flat and nasally, and only exists due to the necessities of commerce. A daughter dialect of this can be found in Pittsburgh Yinzer in America.
Your name is English, OP's is Anglo-Irish. 'Nuff said.
@@archenema6792 I'm still unsure of the point you're trying to make. Good luck with it, whatever it was.
Jake D'Arcy just had one of those faces that screamed Glaswegian, although he was actually born in the south of England at the end of WW2 - RIP (2015). aka the football coach in "Gregory's Girl" and, of course, Pete the Jakey in "Still Game"
"I'm not saying I want you to, but why DON'T you?" :)
"But why should I? I talk like this all the time."
Both perfectly valid questions. So nice (and sadly unusual) to hear a frank but friendly conversation about accents!
The wildest accent I’ve ever heard was a Cuban man who learned English from West Virginian moonshiners. Honestly, I could’ve listened to that guy for hours. I’m sorry people can be so rude about accents, I think they are all lovely and tell such a rich story. The Scottish accent definitely is the best in the world, though, I must say.
Aye, I believe so too but this Scottish great-gran is biased! 🏴
I knew a Spaniard that learned to speak English in Newcastle. That was one crazy accent.
Yeah? Try Mongolian English in Australia......
Discovered this a few days ago and it is outright the best accent I have encountered.
Someone said it is Czech. I have no idea.
ua-cam.com/video/-9RB3T_kVh4/v-deo.html
Every country has an obsession with "neutral" accent, but that thing doesn't exist. Every person has an accent, there's no neutral accent. I'm galician (northwest spain) and the spaniards want to imitate our accent but they can't because our entonation is more "melodical" than theirs, but anyway, they find it funny. In some way is something similar in a irish-uk context to irish english, I suppose. I love how scottish accent sounds but I recognise that at the beggining is difficult to understand for a non english speaker.
In another episode she is playing eye spy and chooses T for time. After a hilarious argument where she is told she can’t have that because you can’t see time. She responds by exclaiming, “people always say, have you seen the time”. Just perfect.
I'm from the US. A while back I was on vacation in Scotland and having a drink in a pub in Ayr. I had a nice conversation with a Scottish gentleman and a British businessman with a Cockney accent. The British fellow had to interpret everything the Scot said.
Aye, the Scotsman was probably playing his role and laying it on thick. That's whit ah wid dae! I was born close to Ayr.
ps to be pedantic they are both British though that is a bone of contention with some of us :)
Rest in peace.He was great in Still Game and Gregory’s Girl.
Oh! I Loved Gregory's Girl! I've never even met anyone else who has seen it! I'm in the states - but I desperately want to live in the UK! Your accents are beautiful, and I want to speak beautifully too! I adore your humor, your telly, and your stars! And I love that people are more cordial there in general. My heritage on both sides is Welch, Irish and Scottish. I FEEL homesick, and I've never even been there! ❤️❤️❤️
Gregory's girl a classic film ! one of my favourites watched many times, i would have not recognised if you had not said. 👍keep safe and well all !
@@ESCAPINGTHEMATRIXFORGOOD I saw it in Canada when I was 12, and I believe their were subtitles.
Jake D'Arcy. I worked with him. Good actor.
and Tutti Frutti
Funniest family show EVER. The biggest belly laughs of my life were when watching this show. Daddy doing his 'thing'. Ben pointing at his dad hollering "Stranger! STRANGER!!"
To be fair to the girl, the elder did speak in Gaelic in the beginning.
I’m from Northern Ireland but I worked for a year in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. It blew my mind that everyone thought that I was from Scotland 🏴🤣 because of how similar our accents are. Mind you, I wasn’t complaining, quite happy to be mistaken for one of our Scottish cousins
Can't believe that for a minute!
You might be interested to know that he is speaking Gaelic when he first walks in.
Nollaig Chridheil (Merry Christmas)
That sort of spoils the joke, doesn't it? They don't understand him and think he's speaking a different language -- because he is.
@@VidkunQL Gaelic is a different language though, just in case you weren’t aware.
Oh my god its Pete the jakey from still game
Rip Pete 💐🌹🌈
Never get bored of this!
i'm not scottish and i understood what he said! love the accent :)
That little girl's hilarious. Her acting, I mean.
The actor is also improving alot
Far too precocious.
The kids were all brilliant throughout this series, but I have to confess I had a soft spot for Karen.
She also improvised a great deal :)
@@pussycats456 Perfect for the camera. Ticked a box in the selection process I would guess.
“I didn’t understand a word of that.”
Extremely rude!
@@pussycats456 no it isn’t. It’s perfectly acceptable to inform someone you didn’t understand a word of what they said. In fact, I’d say it’s completely necessary to let someone know you didn’t understand a word of what they said.
The little snowflake is lucky the old guy wasn't speaking in Gaelic.
That means it was meant not for you.
Funniest moment of the whole sketch.
'I didn't understand a word of that' (The emperor has no clothes)
Wonderful!
At a wedding recently and saw a trans guy talking with a group of adults with a couple kids. After the trans guy had wandered off and the adults were still talking i saw one of the kids look around at the parents with a weird puzzled look and exclaim loudly 'But...it's a MAN! Why are you pretending that it's not a man?'
Every adult was suddenly very interested in their own shoes.
@@strangelee4400 Great! Classic 'The Emperor has no Clothes'! And why indeed? Society is presently gripped by a pervasive hypocrisy. 'Out the mouths of babes...'
Most of us can speak in plain English however we choose not to.
I still remember being offended starting primary school and being told to say 'yes' and 'no' instead of 'aye' and 'naw'
Not from my experience of visiting Glasgee. I asked for directions to The Gorbals in my best BBC Southern English accent and got directed to the local swimming baths though I think the local guys were taking the p. :)
11 years ago and I am just not (October 2021) finding it ONLY because UA-cam introduced me to it! The entire segment is fun! The little girl’s comments are really amusing! I hear French and Deutsch in various parts California but no Scotsmen yet. I tell each when I greet them that California became a wee bit smarter with them here!
You went out of your Cali way to call the German language Deutsch, then imply you've heard no one speak Gaelic or is it that you have not run into a man from Scotland.
@@ScooterFXRS My “Cali” way? 😆 A might arrogant eh? I did not go out of my way, I always call it Deutsch. WHO calls it “Cali”, besides you?! 😆 Wait, I do see stupid looking ball caps around California that have “Cali” on them! I still have not HEARD anyone say “Cali”! I prefer to call the German language Deutsch because that is what it is it called in Deutschland. I LIVED in Deutschland. Either way you want to say it I have not heard anyone, standing near me, with a Scottish accent nor anyone speak Gaelic. I would tell them the same, “thank you for visiting near me”. The crap English I hear sometimes sounds ridiculous.
Jake D'Arcy from Still Game, what a fantastic actor he was.
I'm watching programs like this and 'Still Game' as practice before I visit Scotland.
Ah, a horse has got a javelin come through his head :D
Pronounced, Hoarse and Heed...horse and head.
He said " that horse has goat a javelin comin oot its heid"
I am so glad listening to this episode. I had some business with Steward factory in Scotland and I dramatically failed understanding what the secretary was telling me on the phone. A really embarassing situation for me as I thought my school english is just too poor.
A long time ago I met 2 guys from Glasgow, growing up in New York I know lots of languages but when I listened in on their conversation I asked my friend what country they came from because I never heard anything like this new strange language. Now I think it’s adorable.
A, wee Scottie lad arrived at our rural school in New Zealand. He was from Glasgow, we, his classmates, struggled to understand him then and even now 65 years down the line, when we meet up for school reunions, he is a broad Glasgowian as ever. He married a local girl, had three children and they all have the same broad Scottish accent, which used to completely bamboozle strangers, three visually definately part Maori children speaking Scottish, interestingly their children have a slight accent but on occasions, usually after holidays with their grand dad, they are as broad as he is. I have worked with many Scottish nurses and I just love the Scottish accent, but if they get angry about something, even those with a sift accent are barely decipherable.
@@alisoncooper1421
Thank you for sharing. Nice story. I’ve lived in Sydney for a long time but I still have to spell my name and over the phone, forget it. You can take the girl out of the Bronx…
While I was in England I was watching a UK show called "MI-5". It's called something else there. Anyway, in an opening scene a group of Cockney burglars are robbing a very posh London flat, and steal something, a top secret item, they should not have. Anyway while they are chatting about and ransacking the place, subtitles start appearing under their dialogue. I started laughing so hard when I realized the producers thought subtitles were necessary for these Cockney gents because they thought not even other English people would understand them!
'Spooks' is what it is called originally and in several territories (a nickname for spies)
My grandmother called it the "old English" and when my grade 3 teacher supervising the playground saw me watching a road paver outside the fence yelled at me then came running up to me and asked me "don't you understand plain English?" .. I looked at her (didn't hear her over the noise of the fantastic machine paver ) and answered -NO -straight-faced and innocent like .... I always will remember how surprised I was when she grabbed my cheek and hauled me off to see the principal!! Nollaig cridhei !
"A ye lookin at me or chewing a brick"
Is my favourite endearment line from bonnie Scotland
"Are you talking to me or chewing a brick?" is what is said
It's alright, lass, I can sympathize. When the film "Train Spotting" was screened, here in the U.S., it appeared with subtitles, as if it were in Italian or French. We would have been lost without them.
When Mad Max 1 was released in the US they dubbed it with American actors as they thought Americans wouldn’t be able to understand Aussie slang lol.
They released in the UK with the American voices too for years we couldn’t hear the original Aussie version
Wow that's insane.
I married a Scot and some of her relatives were from Glasgow. At the wedding they were drunk and I couldn’t understand a word they said so just smiled and nodded my head 😊
LOL I remember a Scottish chap (Glaswegian) being interviewed by an American TV News reporter and they used subtitles as well.
I remember the first time the Proclaimers were on American TV (The David Letterman Show), and Dave could not understand them, so he just nodded to everything they said to him.
but i will say one of the best clips i ever seen was the voice recognition for the lift....LOL love burnistoun, also loive mrs browns boys...lol
ELEVEN!! don't make me come up there and sort you out.
Television for idiots.
Great show, great cast top to bottom !
I am Aussie, and the funniest thing I came across was walking into a Fish and Chip shop, and seeing Chinese people behind the counter. I walked up and the Chinese man asked how I was going, in the broadest Scottish Accent I had ever heard. I looked at him in surprise and he laughed and said he and his family immigrated to Glasgow around 1900 and he grew up there so talks just like this man did. It was so funny. But they did have the best Fish and Chips in the area.
Pete the Jakey has made it far.
Gie’s a thunder burd boaby!!
I think tha Berin Kany Noo wut hus Sain.Ey ludde 🏴
I was born and raised in Somerset - 40 years ago, in my first job as an apprentice, for 3 months I was assigned to be mentored by a Glaswegian. I never did understand what he was trying to tell me. Scary really as we were assembling aircraft parts. I just looked at the drawings and nodded when it seemed appropriate. Glad to say all the units I built passed inspection.
Brilliant. The innocence of childhood for all to enjoy.
Every time we went to England and a native repeated the wee girl's closing statement, "I didn't understand a word of that", we always considered it a badge of honour.
That's was the whole purpose of creating the dialect, to keep the English from understanding.
Same with Dutch and German.
My brother came to the US speaking Scouse; same thing.
🤣🤣🤣
Och, A dudnee understoand a wird o' tha sassanach's bletherin, ye ken!
@@clavichord Ye spelt Dundee wrang ye stotter!
I still use that ‘grace’ to this day.
Are you Scottish?
Can you translate it for me please?
@@sarcasmo57
Some have meat (food), and they can't eat,
And some have none, but want it.
But we have meat (food), and we can eat,
So let the Lord be thanked!
@@trollop_7 Oh, thank you.
@@sarcasmo57 How much of it could you previously make out?
Loved this! I haven't seen the 2009 Christmas special so this was new to me!
Hilarious. I learned Scottish from Still Game, and the slang. RIP Jake D'Arcy. Much Missed.
I have a Glaswegian friend who has been living in London, Ontario for decades. I understand her while many have no idea what she is saying. Her Canadian children have Canadian accents. My friend is full of life and fun and uses expressions and vocabulary unique to Glascow.
Lol. Hilarious.
"wee toaty bit" Love it.
American here...
I had the privilege of working in England for a year in Newbury, about an hour's train ride west from London.
I quickly found a local pub. The manager was Cockney and his SO was from Glasgow. Between them, I could hardly understand half of what they said. :D
Back in the late 50's My US Air Force family lived in Newbury. We were from South Texas and the locals had a bit of trouble understanding our version of English. However my youngest brother developed a sort of English accent by the time we returned to the US.
One of the writers described Ramona Marquez (Karen) as having the face of an angel and the mind of a barrister. She was 7 years old at the time. Never forgotten that quote as it seems so true!
First of all, I'll have you know Ramona Marquez's character's name is Kylie and how do I know that? Because I used to watch this series when I was a kid, and I know all of the characters so please get her name right in the future, and, second of all, the only thing you're doing right now is dissing my autistic friend who likes YUNGBLUD (a dish made from fuit and eggs), whose name is, obviously, Karen.
You think that's bad? I was in a restaurant recently when suddenly a man at the table next to me started choking. I went over and gave him the Heimlich maneuver and he said: "What do you think you're doing? I'm just speaking Dutch."
Hahaha Priceless
Eet smaakelijk!
Dank u Wel!
Lol
The girls acting is amazing!
Much iof it improvised !:)
im now living in scotland and english is not my 1st language. its hard for me to understand their accent by i love the country and the people
Karen and Ben are unbelievably funny!
There should be more kids like them on TV
First of all, I'll have you know her name is Kylie and how do I know that? Because I used to watch this series when I was a kid, and I know all of the characters so please get her name right in the future, and, second of all, the only thing you're doing right now is dissing my autistic friend who likes YUNGBLUD, whose name is, obviously, Karen.
"I didn't understand a word!", was the best ending, lol.
I was born in Glasgow, 1948, in the 1980s I lived in San Francisco California and was married to a woman from Los Angeles, I took her to Glasgow in 1988 and she never understood a single word any of my family ever said to her though they thought I had married a Movie Star as she went to Hollywood High School and had an Aunt who lived in Beverley Hills, once we were up in the Scottish Highlands driving around and go lost, she asked this guy standing on the street some directions, I thanked him and drove on, she turns to me and said... Dont tell me you understood THAT... We found what we were looking for proving that I did indeed understand THAT...She went back to California, and I stayed for another three weeks and when she picked me up at the Airport she said she could hardly understand what I was saying as I didnt realize that my Glasgow accent had returned from the darkest parts of my mind. dear Auld Glesga Toon.
That wee English Lassie was real funny..
The Scottish accent is so varied. This one, Billy Connelly and the Mike Myers (based on his father and older family) versions are all vastly different but inherently similar. For such a small country the variety is amazing.
As a Glaswegian, I have found myself in need of an interpreter when listening to comedians from Aberdeen (and Newcastle).
I spent some time at St Andrews Univ and my cleaner and I had many conversations. Unfortunately, I never understood a word she said.
The acting in this, both from the elderly Scotsman and the girl, is utterly brilliant.
My Grandmother, born in Scotland, aid that prayer before every meal.
That prayer was courtesy of the bard Rabbie Burns!
he got a javelin goin through his heed
This little girl was such a good comedian in that show. The best one in it and she was very young.
She sure was! By the way her name's Kylie!
That’s no Mack, that’s Pete the jakey.
Is he Albanian? No, he's from Scotland! She is a priceless comedian with uncanny timing & delivery like the elder gent. The old gaffer's "why should I talk like you" is golden. Instant fan of outnumbered!
And he has a beautiful Scottish accent! Love it.
When I lived in Australia, they used to put subtitles on Scottish people. I had no issue understanding them, but I did watch a lot of Rab C Nesbitt
I Know, ! Understand, ! See the point,! and the jist of the humour .
.....But, the kids in this comedy are absolutely perfect in their roles.
......can ONLY be down to the perfect way Andy Hamilton sees society.
"Why should i?" - exactly. Makes a nice change that you are not *just* taking the piss solely on the basis that it's a different accent from your own. I wonder if this would be included in a TV show as readily, if it was Jamaican accents you were making fun of, or even French, German or Italian.
One simple reason why, language is for communication. If people can't understand what you are saying it is a waste of time opening your mouth.
I think Ive come to realise I like the Scottish accent/dialect. My roots are there so I think I'm gonna explore it.
I was aboard a train from Birmingham to Manchester in June 1995,
sat across from an elderly man and woman.
As we acquainted ourselves,
I was initially chatty as usual,
friendly and curious.
Eventually,
the woman told me that she had just lost the last of her brothers and they were returning home after the recent funeral for him.
She said little else and gently wept.
Since she only spoke briefly,
I never quite placed her accent.
The man was chatty as well and did most of the talking from there.
He had the thickest Scottish accent i’d ever heard.
I’m from the United States.
I couldn’t understand a word.
For the remainder of the journey,
I said little else and gently nodded.
The absence and misplacement of rhotic sounds in southern (ie posh) English makes it arguably the most incomprehensible of all our accents. It’s understandable maybe only because of its past prevalence in radio and tv! Accents are fun though. And we’ve all got favourites :).
Totally agree. Check the phonetic dictionary for words like "fur", "first", "answer" etc. They're all upside-down Greek letters and they represent strangulated or stretched vowels. The Scottish vowel sounds for "a" and "o" are actually very pure (and represented in the linguistic dictionary as "a" and "o"). Listen to a posh boy say "law and order" and insert the "r" after the first syllable (the "r" they don't usually pronounce). RP English is the weirdest language I know for vowel sounds, but we've been programmed to consider it nor only acceptable, but normal.
I worked with a lot of Scots in Saudi Arabia. I was one of the few who could actually understand what they were saying with their brogue. My brother had multiple medical issues including a speech impediment and my siblings and I had to translate essentially. For whatever reason, it was like listening to my brother. I was a translator. Once they taught me Scottish euphemisms I was in. They also introduced me to Billy Connolly. I am forever in their debt for that. Look him up on UA-cam doing the story about the dwarf. You’ll thank me.
So that's what Spud has been doing over the last 20 years
Tris Salmon lo
So he didnae get aff the scag then.
Some of my grandparents and their siblings were from different parts of the UK. One would think that I would be able to distinguish and understand a thick Scottish accent from a Yorkshire , Cockney, or a Welsh after growing up and hearing those accents. Yet now I live in Western Canada and I still have to put on the Closed Captioning on anything I watch that originates in the "motherland". On the plus side of this is that I have picked up some of the various accents and pronunciation of words so when I talk with my relatives down south in my "fatherland" my Okie and Missouri family are always saying, "huh?" My favourite word to squeeze into my Americanadian accent is "controversy" (con-TROV-oh-see). Words like NIGH-ther and PROV-a-see are also embedded into my vocabulary. Grandpa Scotty would be proud for me to sound a smidgen like him. And just like that Bob's your uncle.
Bob's your Uncle and Charley's your Aunt, My Friend :)
Unfortunately the ‘cun-TROV-u-see’ pronunciation seems to be rapidly dying out in England, even newsreaders say it in an American style (which IIRC is what I’ve heard Scotsmen say too), I persist with the traditional way of saying it though and I’m English. I don’t know what word you’re trying to spell phonetically as ‘PROV-a-see’ though, could you elaborate on that?
That was funny....
I'm from near Glasgow and that was pure comedy
The Scottish accent is pidgin Swedish/Norwegian and also the English pronunciations were affected by a vowel shift 100’s of years ago.
No it most definetly is not "pidgin'.
You've clearly not heard many Swedes or Norwegians speaking then.
"Pidgin Swedish/Norwegian"? Oh please
@@Alan_Mac I have, and you have clearly no idea what a pidgin is regarding language.
@@scottie278 I wasn't replying to you - and there's no need for your snide reply to something that wasn't directed at you.
I'm Scottish and can understand very difficult broad Glaswegians and ancient Scots but even i had no idea what he said when he walked in the door....
Gaelic.
He spoke in Gaelic and said merry Christmas, how are you doing?
He actually just said hello in Gaelic
hi! i know im really late to the comment hahahaha but do glasweigans have a stronger accent? 🤔
It was Gaelic. You should know that ffs.
I remember when certain state of New York Police departments were given government grants to hire handicapped individuals to man the Emergency 911 lines in order to relieve actual police officers from this function so that they could go back on the streets. It was a disaster. Certain of the new employees had hearing impediments and asked panicked callers to repeat themselves, while others were afflicted with short term memory loss and would forget what was just told to them and would put partial or different (guessed) information out to be dispatched. The best story that came out of this of course was the Scotsman in a wheel chair who couldn't quite understand the New Yawk accent and the callers who would curse at him while "dying" because they didn't know what language he was talking. Needless to say the program ended after 90 short days until a better screening method could be devised.
I know I shouldn’t…. But I can’t stop laughing at this, 😂
Noo Yawker is really easy to understand. Now Tennessee or backwoods Virginian, they're tough.
So precious. 😄
The wee lass OBVIOUSLY ain't had good upbringin' ....
Loved the little girl. Classic!
Its not just Scots, have you never been to Newcastle or Liverpool?
Sweet little girl....unfazed and untouched by Life....as honest as the air!
My all time favorite...🤣🤣🤣🤣
I remember years ago I was out at a pug in Edinburg with two guys from Paisley. I could completely understand them the whole night except the one time when they argued between themselves over.... God only knows... hahaha
I’m from Paisley and married to an American. He does really well, but he says when I talk to my sisters on the phone he just gives up! 😆
Edinburgh no Edinburg !!! Get it right
The only explanations I've come up with for the caliber of that girl's acting is that she's some kind of female Benjamin Button (only appears to be a young girl), or she was involved in some kind of Freaky Friday type scenario and has swapped bodies.
What?? She was good, but nothing extraordinary. Kids that can act at least as well as that are a dime a dozen.
@@Cosmo-Kramer That's quite a statement! Care to name some? I've evidently been missing out!
@@BezoRazo Shirley Temple. Jay North. Little Ricky Seagal. Gary Coleman. Drew Barrymore, and Millie Bobby Brown, to name a few. [mic drop]
@@Cosmo-Kramer I should've been more specific. I'm commenting on the quality of her comedic acting: the beats, the delivery, the microexpressions. Things that many adult comedians spend their whole careers trying to master, most falling short.
@@Cosmo-Kramer
Hardly 'dime a dozen'.
The young lady is a natural.
the little girl is so real. it's like they didn't even prompt her on a script, just let her exist in the scene naturally 😂
The sounds are very similar. I'm Scottish and I live in Spain, and I'm learning some Arabic. It's fascinating.
And you were right - it was more or less, "how are you?"
He makes some valid points.
So " toty, toty, toty, toty, toty till ye've got nane! " Toty to the power -5 : It's our Scottish McMetric system. 😃
I like the way the child responds to that scottish guy..she speaks like an adult who argues everytin...
I love that little girl, she is simply wonderful. Heed? What's a heed, do you mean head?
I worked in Austria for a while, but my German understanding was fairly poor so I couldn't keep up with what people were saying most of the time. One day I was eating in the canteen and could hear a chap talking quickly and of course couldn't understand him. Suddenly it dawned on me that he was talking English with a Glaswegian accent and I had just not understood him for several minutes. Interestingly, many Austrians struggle to understand their own language when spoken by a German.
That wee lassie is brilliant. Hahaha
I loved that, as someone who has been lucky enough to live in Scotland for many years and benefit from the kindness and courtesy of Scottish people - what a beautiful accent, and a beautiful grace.
Karen is the best 😂😅
First of all, I'll have you know her name is Kylie and how do I know that? Because I used to watch this series when I was a kid, and I know all of the characters so please get her name right in the future, and, second of all, the only thing you're doing right now is dissing my autistic friend who likes YUNGBLUD, whose name is, obviously, Karen.
I think there are as many as 17 dialects in Scotland, what a great culture though! There are loads of words we've picked up from them : aye, nowt lassie are all words we use every day.
aye = from Middle English a ye (“oh yes”)
nowt = northern English dialectal pronunciation of "naught"
lassie = from Middle English lasse (“an unmarried woman, maiden”)
We use them every day because they're our words.
there are even quite a few different ones in Edinburgh alone!
@wimse10 well theres many types of accents in scotland, england and ireland so a british accent could be any one of them. It depends what area you come from, people who live 15 miles down the road from me have different accents to the people of the city im currently living in :) but yeah i love australian accents too!
The bit at the start, he was just talking jibberish! I am Scottish and i couldn't understand that. I love the bit " what do you mean heed " LOL "NAIN"
I love being Scottish and having our own dialect and bordering on different language. People don't understand that Scottish people have been speaking like this for as long as English people have been speaking proper English.
It's not gibberish, it's Gaelic
It was Gaelic for "Merry Christmas, how are you?."
That's not Mac that's Pete the jakey 😂😂
That little girl is hilarious
At my house, it's my wife's Colombian accent -- even after 20 years, it's still funny when she comes up with unique words.
I got a Taiwanese wife...know what you mean.
Get your wife to say "put your sheets in the washing machine and then we'll go to the beach!"
That should be a few good laughs.
@@FirstLastOne I'd rather get her to say "Please, stop giving me your money. I don't want anymore."