Is Aberdeen accent difficult to understand?

Question

I'm going there for a job interview and although Scottish is one of my favourite accents, I'm a bit concerned. Bear in mind, English is not my first language.

Additional Details

As some of you feel the urge to point out that there are different Scottish accents, yeah, I realize it, but if it were the other way round do you think you would be that good at distinguishing different Spanish, French or Italian accents?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

They speak what is known as "Doric" - the Scots dialect used in north east Scotland. It's more than just an accent.

Click the link below and then select the first audio file link called 'European Scots' to hear a true example of Doric. >

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/kist/m…

In an interview then it won't be as strong as this, or even like this at all. It'll just be as close to standard English.

As said, there is no one Scottish accent. There's likely dozens of different accents and at least five different main dialects of Scots.

Source(s):

The official Doric site >
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone/kist/
http://www.scotslanguage.com/books/view/…

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Asker's Comment:

Thanks

Answer 2

the hardest scottish accent to understand is Glasgow
when it comes to accents in scotland its more to do with a class thing but i think aberdeeen accent is quite hard to understand too in general

Answer 3

"Scottish" is not an accent. There are different accents around the country (including Glasgow which has at least three accents that I can identify).

A really deep Aberdonian accent would probably be difficult to understand, not least because they use a lot of words which aren't standard English, but middle-class Aberdonians will speak standard English in a very easy to understand way - it's actually quite a nice accent. I would expect the same standard English to be used in a professional setting such as a job interview.

Answer 4

im fae aberdeen. its nae that bad like . the way im talking is the way we are ... and my mates nae from here and he got the hang of it well fast like, you will love aberdeen lad ;)

Answer 5

I think it can be sometimes

Answer 6

The folks fae Aberdeen say "fit like" (how are you..) fit`s tha (what`s that ?) fit`s tha fer (what`s that for) you will soon become accustomed to it, its not a foreign language, merely a dialect...Strangely, just up the road, in Elgin, the people there speak the best "recieved English " in the whole of the U.K.

Two Aberdonians up a mountain in Austria..one says to the other......"fit fit fits fit ski"? which foot fits which ski