Scottish Culture Shocks when Moving to Scotland! 🤯🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Moving to a foreign country for your studies is a great way to immerse yourself in another culture; meeting new people and experiencing the world from an entirely different perspective. But with cultural exchange also comes cultural shocks. International #UofStirling student Mathieu shares some of the culture shocks he's faced for the past 3 years while studying in Scotland. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING
Founded in 1967, the University of Stirling has been helping its graduates, staff and students to shape the world.

On 18 September 1967, 164 undergraduate students and 31 postgraduates began their courses at the new Pathfoot Building. Since then, we’ve grown to over 14,000 students spanning 120 nationalities and we have over 88,000 alumni in 170 countries.

Our stunning campus, with its castle, loch and golf course, enjoys views of the foothills of the Scottish Highlands, and is often cited as among the most beautiful in Europe. You might even recognise some of the buildings and sights from the popular TV series Outlander! Our campus is located on the edge of the bustling city of Stirling, close to Glasgow and Edinburgh. We’re situated on the site of the historic Airthrey estate which includes the Robert Adam-designed 18th century Airthrey Castle. Our campus enjoys a vibrant and friendly atmosphere and in 2016 our campus was rated first in the UK by International Student Barometer.

[emmabathgate]

"How to wash your hands: quickly alternate between arctic temperatures and pure lava" 🤣 As a native Scot, I also find this setup completely baffling!

[darraghtalorgan]

As a Scot I can clue you in about the language a little bit because we have some rather complicated things going on that no one really see's because it's just everyday life to us.
One of these things is that there are 3 Scottish languages: There's Scottish English (regional dialects of English), Scot's (which is a sister language to English from a similar Germanic root language but mutually intelligible with English(like Norwegian to Swedish sort of thing)), and Gaelic (which is a Celtic language like Welsh or Irish which isn't very much like English at all).
Scottish English and Scot's is the most likely that you'll come across; it's a small minority of people that actually speak Gaelic.

The problem is the way in which Scottish people talk that confuses a lot of people and the lines between dialect and language are a bit too blurry to see easily a lot of the time. This is because Scot's tend to speak in a sort of polyphasic speech pattern based on social situations with alterations caused by things like where they are, why they're there, who they're talking to and who else is there.
So people, on the most part, speak in a modular way where they dip in and out of Scot's, Scottish English and sometimes just English with a Scottish accent.
There's a great deal of cultural reasons that there's seperation between Scot's and English which is mostly down to cultural attacks against Scotland from England. Scot's used to be the language of Scotland which was spoken everywhere, including parliament.
It was branded as simply "wrong English" by the English and after the union it was treated as such. This isn't old history either, I used to get punished at school for speaking Scots because it was "bad English". This is one reason why Scots speak in this modular fashion; Scots isn't considered good for informal things because of this belittling so you'll often find that Scots speak it more at home than at work, for example. It wasn't jsut language, they illegalised a lot of Scottish culture; our other language Gaelic and cultural aspects such as our political system at the time, tartans and kilts. This is one reason why kilts aren't often worn outside of traditional spaces; unfortunately there's still a lot of bad feelings around the kilt due to that that not many people wear them casually. That said I was one of the few who did and honestly the kilt was a lot better suited for more everyday activities than trousers, although much worse in others. The casual kilts are the lightweight kilts, not to be mistaken with the heavy weight kilts for dressing up smart in.

It makes texting a bit weird sometimes too because sometimes people won't text in Scot's but when you talk to them it's pretty much all in Scot's. Another interesting thing about the Scot's language is that it has no standard writing system. Since it wasn't legal to use the language in writing, it happening as literacy was beginning to increase, as well as some staying away as it was looked down on (not something you really want in a product or serious document) it's use and passing down of it has largely been through oral tradition. So we spell words like how they sound rather than having a specific standard; although we oddly do have self regulating standards for the spelling of words which seems to work on a massively regional way where the spellings of words changes town to town and even grammar. You can find a lot of examples of this on Scottish memes, although most will have difficulty telling the difference between slang and the Scot's language.

The words he gives us for example:
Hiya = English slang
Cheers = English
Wee = Scots
Lad/lassie = Scots
Bonnie = Scots
Banter = English slang
Bevy = English slang
Tatties = Scots
Rank = Scots
Minging = English
Pure Barry = English slang (Edinburgh regional)
Scran = Scots
I dinnae ken = That's a Scot's sentence, the "I" is often pronounced as "Ah" and is also completely optional to it. There's also a Scottish English dialectal version of this where the dinnae is "didnae".


The fried mars bar thing, you could pretty much ask a chippy to fry anything and they'd give you a price and do it. Might not be as common now but I've heard of all sorts of stories with things like this.
Also, if you're still in Scotland you should visit Prestwick. There's a wee cafe called Murry's on the main street and it makes the best Cullen Skink imo.

[shanchat]

Scotch Eggs were onvented by Fortnum and Mason in London, England and there is no e in whisky.

If you aren't a fan of Irn Bru, try Barr's Red Kola.

[Medicina]

Well done fella, very amusing and informative, your practically a local now.

[jamesrowe]

The manager of Celtic was asked how the team's new Japanese players were settling in Glasgow. "I feel a bit sorry for them", he said. "They all worked really hard to learn English and when they got here, they found that it wasn't much use to them." The Scottish accent is more than an accent. It's a dialect.

[juanitahardy]

Its all about how flexible you are. I moved there in 1990 in my 50s as a single person and the move and adjustment was totally seamless but then Canadians are flexible people.

[Gregory]

I’m from the Pacific Northwest, and the weather you describe sounds perfect. 😊

[glasgovipsolara]

Jeez, that was so good I thought to myself, I should go there - as I’m sitting at home here in Glasgow.

It is a wonderful place and you did very well with this video. Slàinte!

[theresamay]

Best Scotland video - Thanks! Just got back but want to go again (from US)

[Living_the_Scottish_Dream]

It is mainly the west coast of Scotland that endure high annual rainfall. Tayside on the east coast is the driest and sunniest weather of all Scotland. The same goes for the Moray coast in the Highlands. Due to the fact that they are surrounded by mountain ranges precipitation occurs before reaching those areas. I wish people would stop comparing the whole country's weather based on one location.

[Àdhamh_Fife]

Brilliant video mate. Scottish and love seeing people from overseas come here and stay in our beautiful country, and bring us a bit of their own 😁

[garryej]

Sottish pastry is grand! After the rebellion, many noble families escaped to France (the Auld Alliance). Their cooks and chefs learned from the best - The French!

[markusmybusiness]

Im lucky to have 5 taps in my home and I’ve converted each one to mixers. Been here 30 years and it still baffles me.

[garryej]

And, if you're willing to spend a bit more than you would at a chippy, there are many fine restaurants, both in the big cities as well as rural towns.

[hadz]

On screen it said "whiskey" - of course you meant "whisky".

[RonTodd-gbeo]

Kudos for your pronunciation of 'lochs'. Good tip for pubs is avoid any with a flat roof.

[KF-cxbm]

I'm Scottish and me, and knowone I know eats the food you mentioned

[Wildernessoutside]

alva glen to dollar glen is a fantastic little hike

[mr.gherkin]

Thank you for this, im planning to move (ive lived in glasgow ma whole life)

[IvanGonzalez-mpxh]

Idk about you, but all of this literally sounds like heaven to me! No joke, perhaps it’s being raised in Maryland/Pennsylvania by Dutchy folks in the Mid-Atlantic NE, but I think I’ve found my European muse! Let alone my love of Scotch, which was not expounded upon… the video has me longing for Scotland even being a real, down home American kid.