When I moved abroad I was surprised at how many people I met could not understand my accent or Scottish/British words.
I got really confused until I realised that although we may get tons of American film and television programmes in the UK and worldwide, there is not as much British media in the US. Anything which represents 'Britain' usually comes from London, so it's no wonder that Americans can't understand the Scottish accent or slang. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that speaking English in a Scottish accent doesn't even sound like English sometimes...
For example, I told my friend who was looking for someone-
"There they are there," but shortened it down to "There they're there."
-this sounded like, "There there there,"...and so things got confusing.
Also...the word six in the Scottish accent sounds like sex.
Okay, so English in a Scottish accent is difficult to understand. Now what happens when that Scottish person is Glaswegian??
Glaswegians are hard to understand even for other Scottish people from different cities and towns and even for other glaswegians. Personally, I wouldn't consider my accent posh, but more well-rounded than a typical weegie accent...however, when the accent is reallly really thick - even I find it hard to understand...and I'm from Maryhill.
Although I understand most British/Scottish/Glaswegian slang...people always seem to invent new words that I could never keep up. So I present to you - a website I found which has almost any slang/accented word you could think of...just click on a letter and the words will come up!
Hope it helps!
