Slightly cringey question about foreign [EU] accents in Scotland

[Dutchwithflowers]

I am from the Netherlands originally. Although I have lived in England for over 15 years I have not been able to, and probably will never, loose my native accent.

Dp and I are considering a move to Scotland, probably Glasgow, Edinburgh or St Andrews. People here in England have made comments about my accent in the past and I must say I am getting a bit self-conscious about it.

My question is how easy is it to adapt to local accents in the places I have listed, at least to a degree, and how tolerant are the Scots in general about foreign accents. I speak very fluently it's just that you can detect I am one of those from the EU and therefore not terribly popular here at the moment.

I appreciate it is a bit of a silly question but any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Specialsubject, have you ever been to Scotland and experienced anti-English behaviour? We're not 'anti-English', there are a huge amount of English people living and working here quite happily. About a third of my pupils are English, I've never had any experience of pupils being bullied for being English (20+ years in education). We're a welcoming country, partly I think because, as a PP said, Scots have a strong history of migration. Our football supporters are also great ambassadors for Scotland when they travel abroad.

My son lives and works in the South of England. He's subjected to anti-Scottish abuse almost on a daily basis, and is expected to just brush it off as 'banter'.

Oh yes. I moved to England from Scotland as a kid and very quickly learned to change to fit in with my English classmates' and - I hate to say, teachers' - hilariously funny 'banter'. And I also learned I was wrong, not different, wrong, about things like saying Santa instead of Father Christmas, or turnip instead of swede, or amn't instead of aren't.

For years I spoke one way at school and another at home. Just as a survival mechanism.

your replies actually made me well up. I noticed what NS said about EU immigrants and thought it was wonderful.

"I think people who have English as a second language tend to be accent tarts"

"He does use Scottish words like 'Aye' and 'Nae bother' though, and they do sound a little odd in a non-Scots accent" haha, i can imagine.

again for your generous and friendly posts!

I lived in the south of England for a while and became sick of the "banter" from English people about my accent, the highland clearances, just generally about where I was from (to clarify I have never, in all my 30 odd years heard a Scot utter the words "och aye the noo". Not fucking once.) and expected to laugh it off. If I said anything in order to even the balance a bit I was accused of being anti-English, which was bullshit as a most of my good friends are English and I don't have a problem with England, or English people. The amount of anti Scottish shite I have heard from English people far, far outweighs the other side of it, and the comments post Indy Ref about yes voters were absolutely vile.

Historically pre-union, Scotland was a Kingdom whereby so long as you were working for the greater good of the country and abiding by rules set out by the people, then it didn't matter where you came from as you were Scottish at heart.
Some of our greatest Scottish families came from Europe- Robert the Bruce for instance was a De Brus.
Scots were happy to oust a king if he wasn't pulling his weight or acting in the name of the people- opinion of the general public truly mattered.

Although that was a long time ago, I think in essence a lot of it is still valid as Scottish people are open to everybody from everywhere and don't begrudge it so long as everybody is toeing the line.

There's still mad racists. They exist everywhere unfortunately but they're perhaps a bit more likely to get shouted down for it here or ostracised.

I know NS is a controversial leader but
""It is also the deeply damaging - and utterly shameful - message that the Tories' rhetoric about foreign workers is sending."

is really great and warming to hear. Is it sincere or mostly an 'up yours' to TM?

For my part I think it's sincere. Scotland has a history of welcoming people, wherever they are from and whatever their history. I don't know or care why, I'm just proud of Scotland for having that reputation. I too think that the Tories rhetoric is deeply disturbing and their attitude to immigrants and their own people who are struggling is horrendous.

It is very sincere, and nothing new for NS to be saying, so it's not an 'up yours'. SNP were pro EU before Brexit, and will continue to be. We need our EU workers here, they're a huge part of our economy and communities. Perhaps we get lucky, but the immigrants who come here (and I've taught many of their children) are here to work, and work damned hard. They also value education, so once their children have settled in and picked up language basics, they're generally a pleasure to teach. I'm only talking from my experience.

From my experience, I'd say you'd be much more welcome if you speak with an EU accent up here than if you have an English one.

I haven't heard of any anti-EU stuff in my area, but plenty of anti-Englishness from the Neandarthals locals around here.

It's dreadful you've been made to feel that way. Where in England have you been living? My husband and all of my friends from other EU countries still have their beautiful accents and certainly wouldn't try to change them, that would be so weird!

Neanderthals Danyella?

I live in Edinburgh and I love the diversity. At the school gates I have made good friends with norwegian, dutch, polish, swedish and french mums and I love all the accents and interesting chat- and the directness is great! I wouldn't worry about trying to neutralise your accent at all.

Yes - lots of the locals here don't seem to have evolved much. It's unbelievable the racist, homophobic etc phrases that are still commonplace and deemed to be acceptable

Neanderthals? Yet you choose to live in such an awful place?

I don't choose to live here. I can't afford to move anywhere else.

Danyella I'm not in any way defending racist/homophobic language as acceptable, it's vile, but you can't tar an entire nation based on one area where you're clearly unhappy. As an example, the England football fans as a group are well known for being thugs, I don't think all English people are thugs.

Roughly where do you live Danyella ? Not to identify you obviously, just to get an idea of the kind of area you live in.

This place hasn't really moved on from the 60s - it's like all the things that were acceptable on TV are still alive and well here. I'm sure many other areas of Scotland are more enlightened, but this place is still stuck in the past and nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with it. If you say anything critical about it, you get a look of "Who the hell do you think you are?"

Believe me if I could afford to move anywhere else, I would. Sadly my finances and being rubbish at interviews prohibits this.

Luckily I have travelled to other parts of the country and know this is not the norm.

I'm in a small rural town in Grampian btw.

That makes more sense, thanks. I agree that small towns can be quite backwards thinking, but I think that's the case everywhere, not just in Scotland. I think the places OP was talking about would be ok though, much more progressive. I live in a small ish town in central Scotland (rife with sectarianism) and some attitudes are shocking! But in the main people are decent.

I'd say you'd be much more welcome if you speak with an EU accent up here than if you have an English one

I'd agree with that.

"I'd say you'd be much more welcome if you speak with an EU accent up here than if you have an English one" sounds great! my mother was visiting last week and i felt really self conscious about speaking Dutch with her... most people here are probably fine hearing another language but i would have hated for my mum to experience any talk about along the line of "foreigners what are you still dong here" unlikely i know but worrying about it is not a good feeling.

well sounds great for me not so much if you have an english accent if indeed it is so.