"Orite mate, how ye dayin'?"

-Hi my name is Jonna, I spoke to your colleague 10 minutes ago but she put me on the wrong line, so I’m trying again.

-Yeah, ok, what was the person’s name?

-can’t remember

-ok, was it a woman or a man?

-a woman

-did she speak swedish with an accent or without an accent?

-she spoke swedish with an accent

-ok, what accent do you think it was, was it Finnish or some other accent?

Seriously, I felt like I was in a movie or hidden camera or something when I was gonna guess what country someone was from determined by the way they spoke swedish…..When I phoned about getting a time scheduled for the dentist….. yup, true story.

The woman I was talking to at the moment had an american accent. And I almost felt like I wanted to give her a nice compliment on how good her swedish was, but I never, cause I was busy trying to help her find out what colleague of hers I was talking to before. I think the american woman wanted to know which one of her colleagues messed up, maybe it would be good for her to know this in case the needs to use it against her at any point. Naaaw. 

I always think it’s mind-blowing how someone can learn swedish when they’re adults. Or just in general when it’s not their mother tongue. Because I can imagine it’s really hard to get a grip of Swedish. So well done all swedish talking people who didn’t grow up speaking swedish !!! 

I mean, in Sweden we start learning English when we’re quite young in school, and we are surrounded by the language all the time, on the TV in music and all sorts. So it seems a bit easier for us to learn english. So not that same degree of mind- blowingness…. for me at least. 

My boyfriend always says that it’s cool with me cause I know not only two languages, but three. Swedish, English…. and Glaswegian. 

And yes, I take that as a compliment, thank you very much. 

When I first moved to Glasgow to join the band I had NO IDEA what the boys were talking about. I went there and thought I knew english, but this was nothing like the way I’d been taught.
The first couple of weeks I was saying that I didn’t know what a burger was, because I couldn’t understand the way Paul, our bass player said it. “buggah”… He tried again, and the 4th time he said it he decided to put “cheese” in front of it… “like a cheese buggah”. By then I was like 'ooh, you mean cheese buuurrrger ?!?!' ...Felt quite stupid.

Anyway, it took me a few months to get the hang of the glaswegian patter, and today, 4,5 years later I must say that I know ma stuff... sorta. 

Sometimes I can even make people think I’m fae Glesga. 

I always high five myself when that happens. Usually a mental high five, tryin to keep ma cool.

Nowadays I’m teaching my mum and dad glaswegian so that they can try it on the boys when they see them. “Orite mate, how ye dayin’? Gonnae geeze a haun oo’r here?”  

I love the glasweigan accent, I’ve got loads of thoughts on it from a swedish perspective, but I’ll get on that subject another time. Catch yous later peeps. 

Here's some glaswegian phrases to get started. It's not just an accent, it's a culture <3