Glasgow accent, Help!

"It takes me like three minutes to get used to any accent outside the US and then after that I'm fine. Its a really cool feeling whats you get to understand it... like understand a second language without having spent the time to learn it."

Rene,

You mus be a weird Alien.
If your "cool feeling" is as good as your English grammar and spelling, I doubt that you really understand what's going around you.

Believe me, many English speakers from England cannot understand the Glaswegian accent. I am not kidding when I have seen it subtitled on television news programmes. Similar problems can arise with the Newcastle (geordie) accent, although being a southern English speaker living in Yorkshire, I don't have many problems understanding northern English accents, unlike a lot of southerners do.

The main problem with understanding the Glaswegian accent is the way the vowels are spoken. They are very short and different to standard English, e.g. 'i' is often pronounced 'a', so 'drink' would sound more like 'drank' (with a very short 'a'). Similarly, to quote the famous Glaswegian detective Taggart, "murder" is not pronounced "me:(r)d.." more like "m^rd..", with a very short '^' and a rolling 'r'.

Regarding "The Full Monty" above, Robert Carlyle is attempting to speak in a Sheffield accent, not Glaswegian. Although it is an excellent film, the accents are not that accurate and don't really sound like a true Sheffield accent, more a 'general northern english' accent.

It's really great when people realise that the Glaswegian accent is NOT the typical Scottish accent!! As someone who knows Glasgow quite well and have been there gazillions of times, there are actually different forms of the Glasgow accent. It depends on different things.....the most impenetrable of the forms of Glaswegian for non-Scots (and a fair few Scots themselves!) is from older people. It also depends on social factors, especially with regard to education and background and all that stuff.

When I go clubbing in Glasgow (it has a fantastic social scene) I don't have any fash (sorry...trouble) from people of my own age as a general rule. The funny thing is, they usually know straight away that I come from Edinburgh as soon as I open my gob. :-)

When many call centres were based in Glasgow prior to transfer abroad, it caused no end of bother for callers from England (and Wales presumably) and the organisations were constantly receiving complaints about callers not being able to understand the Glaswegian operators. Now they get similar calls about not being able to understand Asians! That's life.

Sean Bean is the guy with the true Sheffield accent, as well as the Arctic Monkeys when they're being interviewed.

I'm having trouble finding Season 4 of Chewin' The Fat. Any recommendations for download sites?

Thanks for any help - it's maddening not to have the end of the series!!!

Sean Bean does indeed have the definitive Sheffield accent. But the Arctic Monkeys are from Barnsley, which yet again differs from the Sheffield accent.

If you listen to Sean Bean to hear an example of a Sheffield accent, be sure you're not watching him in a role that requires some other accent! He plays the aristocrat (without a Sheffield accent) very convincingly in period dramas.