Hello lovely people! 

Happy Friday! 

I’m back!

(some of you might have missed me, and some of you not so much) 

It’s been more than a month since I last posted something here. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write a new blog post.

For the past month, my life has been pretty hectic, to say the least. I’ve been busier than a cat burring sh*t on concrete (Twelve Foot Ninja quote, if you don’t know who they are go check them out. \,,/)

Seriously though, I’ve been working full time, going to gigs and Drag shows, exercising and eating healthily (mainly failing both), trying to stay positive and of course, fighting a cold (finally got my antibiotics, so hopefully will be better soon). Those are things I’ll write about later, though.

Today’s post is about how I cope/ understand the Scottish language (I mean it’s like English, but different.), my first few months in Scotland, and particularly in Dundee, and the period when I had to put 150% concentration into any conversation with a native. (fun days those were). Funnily enough, I still have to do it sometimes.

When I arrived, I expected to not understand people speaking. (which is normal) That wasn’t because my English skills were poor, it was mostly based on stories I’ve heard about people in Scotland and their pronunciation. Don’t get me wrong, in Bulgaria we’re thought from a book by teachers who are not native speakers, so you do the math. 😀 To my amazement though, I understood (almost) everything. Moreover, I was amazed by how friendly everyone is. (Big time recommend visiting if you’ve never been)

I had a wee problem though…

For the first few months, I was really confused by one word – “ken”. For some reason, I always thought that’s a name (Barbie’s husband’s name) It took me a good few months until I finally got the courage to ask my colleagues at work what “ken” means. The exact sentence I used was: “Who is Ken? And why is everyone talking about him?”

Now, you can imagine the look on their faces. That poor little foreigner (a.k.a me) not getting the idea and looking extremely confused while everyone’s laughing. (it was a very bonny sight) Finally, they explained to me that “ken” actually means “I know”…

…but at that point, I didn’t. 😀 *facepalm* Took me a while to get used it.

One thing you might have noticed by now, is I loooove fun facts, and you’ll see them a lot in my posts. Here’s one: In Dundee, they have different words for “lunch” and “dinner”.

That was the most confusing thing in my conversations with my colleagues at work. Every time before our lunch break, my manager would say: “I wonder what to have for my dinner?!” Whereas I was thinking… “Dinner?! It’s 1 pm..it’s too early for that. (while in my head I was coming up with suggestions of what she might cook later on) Eventually, after asking her (about 2 months into the job) she explained to me that “dinner” actually means “lunch”. *duh*

The same happened with our casual conversations about supper. She would say: “I wonder what to have for my tea..” And my thoughts would be: “Tea?! How many different types of tea can one have?! And why is she not having food?!” Quickly I came to the realisation that “tea” was a way to say “dinner”/ “supper” in Dundee. *mindblown*

My all-time favourite word will forever be “wee”. (I mean, come on, it’s so cute)  I was so confused the first time I heard it. Now I “ken” that it means “small”/ “little”.

To be honest I’m a bit “daft” sometimes, which means “stupid” by the way and is another Scottish word.

I believe there are other words that took me by surprise when I first arrived here, but those ones are the ones that I remember confusing me big time.

I hope you liked this post and I’ll see you here again.

I’ll be putting posts up more regularly from now on. *pinky promise*

Have a lovely weekend!

Be kind! 

Much love,

Dan

P.S. Check out my Instagram. 🙂