A language expert from Dundee has produced a test to help new students learn the regional dialect of their adopted city.
To coincide with the start of the university year, various language experts from 17 UK cities, including Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, have produced a local dialect course to help new students learn the regional slang of their adopted hometown.
The initiative has been organised by digital learning platform Quizlet, which has published 10 essential Dundee slang words and phrases, as provided by Gary Robertson, who was recently crowned ‘Scots Performer O The Year’ 2019.
The video above this article shows a video of Gary’s latest work “Mick McCluskey’s Oary Topia”, which has been shared hundreds of times since being posted on Facebook last month.
The Quizlet test asks people to define words such as “fleg”, “dockie” and “teckle”. Try the quiz below to see if you can get 10 out of 10 of Dundonian words.
The initiative coincides with new Quizlet data from 1,000 students, showing 11% have never visited their university hometown before moving, while 44% of students stated they either ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ socialised’ with locals in their university towns.
Stuart Paterson, BBC Scotland Poet in Residence 2017-18, also provided some terms for Glasgow, while This is Edinburgh advised on Edinburgh.
Richard Gregory, vice-president of international at Quizlet, said: “Many of us will remember how nerve-wracking those initial university days are.
“Dozens of faces and names to remember, all in the backdrop of a new city.
“We created this resource to try and mitigate those university jitters – teaching students about their new surroundings through the important pillars of language and culture.
“The relationship between students and the local population can sometimes be a challenge, and that’s why all these language experts wanted to get on board to help us bridge linguistic divides.”
The full study sets created by Quizlet can be found here.
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